About 10 days ago, the news came that Sarah Burke, a Canadian freestyle skier of considerable talent, was involved in a training accident that put her in the hospital.

Today, she died from severe head injuries from the accident.

Freestyle skiing has come a long way from its birth as a bunch of ski bums were less interested in how fast one got from Point A to Point B on a pair of skis than in now stylishly one got there.

The early freestyle skiing events were stunt aerials, moguls, and free skiing, a kind of figure-skating on snow.

The influence of surfing and skateboarding saw the start of half pipe skiing and snowboarding, and big money sponsors helped to start “big air” events which see competitors soaring 20 feet in the air at 80 miles an hour. The safety systems in the sport are not nearly as sophisticated ad they are in other athletic fields of endeavor. The competitors do not wear body padding and most wear open-faced helmets.

In short, this is now an “extreme” pastime with speed and momentum and kinetic energy and impacts that can kill you.

At some point, people in this sport are going to have to ask themselves, “How much is too much?” Perhaps, this may be that moment.