Some people consider Rugby, American football, boxing, and ice hockey as the most dangerous sports. And they’re probably right. But are these really the most dangerous sports in history? Let’s take a journey through history and find out.
venatio
To kick off our journey to find the most dangerous sports in history we are travelling back to Ancient Rome where we have a sport called Venatio.
This sport would be held in the coliseum or a circus Maximus and involved people and animals put against each other in a fight to the death. Oh- and these animals weren’t bunny rabbits or kangaroos. They were lions, bears and tigers.
The animals weren’t fed for days before the game to make them more angry and ready to go after the people so they could have the sweet taste of fingers and toes for tea.
It’s difficult to know how many people and animals would have been crammed in the death battle arena, but when you consider the number of animals killed in the Roman’s “games” wiped out a lot of animal species in Europe.
In other words, there would have been a lot of animals.
Venatio would also often be used as a form of punishment for those who had done wrong or practised the “wrong” religion in the opinion of the emperor of the time. These people, including women, would be given a single dagger to defend themselves.
Let’s just say it’s difficult to defend yourself from an attacking lion with a dagger. (I’m not speaking from personal experience).
chariot racing
Whilst we’re here in Ancient Rome we can look at the next dangerous sport in history. Chariot Racing.
If you have a passing interest in the Romans you’ll have probably heard of chariot racing. I’ll say right now- I’m sure this sport would have been actually really exciting and fun to watch. It’d be the staple of Ancient Rome really.
I certainly wouldn’t want to have a go though. When chariot racing went wrong, it went very wrong.
Before we get into the not-so-romantic details, a little fact for you. Women were banned from viewing sports in Ancient Rome, all sports except chariot racing. So chariot racing was the one sport that the whole family could enjoy together.
You got well paid to be a chariot racer but it also came with a short life span. The crashes caused death in very painful manners.
You could be impaled with shattered wood, trampled by horses, choke on thick dust kicked up by the spriting horses, squashed under a chariot, hit the face by a flying wheel, slip and fall before you even get onto the chariot – the list is endless!
You could even be dragged behind the chariot- pleasant.
Gladiator games
The third Ancient Rome sport (I swear this isn’t just a list of Ancient Rome sports) on our list comes in the form of the Gladiator games. Even if you’ve never heard of the Romans you’ll have heard of gladiators.
Lots of prisoners would be forced into a career as gladiators. Gladiator camps were set up to train the individuals in fighting so they were able to put on a good show for the paying public. They were taught to fight in a dramatic fashion rather than it being trained like actual soldiers.
History books are also wrong when they say there were no female gladiators- a lot of the female gladiators actually volunteered to fight.
Gladiator fights happened right across Ancient Rome so there really was no shortage of bloodshed. The blood-thirsty crowds of Ancient Rome went crazy for the gladiator bouts.
The better gladiators would become famous and crowds would flock to arenas to see them fight. Slightly different than going to see your favourite football player where the worst that happens is that they get a nasty injury or lose a football game.
If your favourite gladiator had a bad day, they’d be dead.
Volcano surfing
In Hawaii, competitors would take a wooden sledge and race them down the side of a volcano. Some people would sit on the sledge, others would risk actually standing like they were on a surfboard. Obviously, the volcano wouldn’t be erupting at the time, but it was still an incredibly dangerous sport.
If they hit a rock or a particularly bumpy surface it could cause instant death or, at the very least, a lifetime injury.
Nowadays this sport exists, but they race down grass slopes rather than the side of a volcano. It’s still incredibly dangerous though.
Jousting
The popular medieval sport of jousting was, as you’d expect, extremely dangerous.
The concept is simple. You get two people on a horse, put a fence down the centre of an arena, and give both horse riders a suit of armour to wear (poor horse) and a big stick. Once everyone’s ready the two horses charge at each other and the two riders try to hit each other with their big sticks.
Death could occur in a whole host of ways.
- Hit really really hard in the face
- Fall off your horse and be dragged along behind it
- A splinter in the eye
- A huge splinter which causes an infection, which leads to death
- Wearing cheap armour which crumbles when hit and you get suffocated by it
- Falling off your horse and being trampled
- Choking on your lunch before the event
- Impaled by a lance
Despite the dangers, jousting is a sport I’d actually really like to try, so if anyone knows where I can learn to joust- let me know.
Pankration
This sport comes from Ancient Greece and was a fist fighting sport between two people. The aim of the game was to bring your opponent as close to death as possible without actually killing them.
What happened if you accidentally killed your opponent? The dead competitor would be declared the winner and you’d be disqualified.
Fisherman’s joust
In Ancient Egypt, there was a sport known as fisherman’s joust. At first, I thought this sport was people in a boat racing down the river with jousts to try and knock their opponent into the water.
Turns out it’s a tad more expensive than that.
There were boats involved and they did race toward each other in the river (in this case the river Nile). But when the boats got to each other the rowers would take their oars and start beating each other up.
The blood and gore would attract crocodiles to get involved in the action to add to the bloodshed.
Is anyone else noticing most of these sports involve beating people up?
And there we have just a handful of the most dangerous sports in history. If you had to play one of them which would you choose? For me- it would be jousting.
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Be sure to check out these other blogs and continue your unromantic journey!