If you have been injured in a sporting accident that was not your fault, you may be entitled to bring a claim for personal injury compensation. Often, both professional athletes and weekend amateurs alike will put their injury down to their own lack of attention, even where there were clearly factors at play that could not be reasonably expected (for example, poorly maintained equipment – please see below for further details on types of spotting injury).
Let’s look at some of the types of sporting injuries on which your claim could be based so that you are ‘in the know’ when it comes to deciding whether you should speak to a lawyer about your injury.
Types of sports injuries could include:
- Improper behavior from the opponent
Sport is competitive. This can lead to heightened tensions between rivals (even in non-team sports such as athletics or ice skating, tempers can boil over between competitors). If you have suffered any kind of injury as a result of the improper behaviors of sporting competitors, you could be eligible to bring a claim.
- Coaching staff encouraging poor practices
Sometimes, coaching staff can become overly competitive and may encourage you to carry out your sporting activities in dangerous ways to increase the chance of winning. For example, encouraging unfamiliar routines in an athletics arena in order to beat the competition is a psychological bullying tactic that places huge amounts of pressure on the athlete to risk injury to themselves.
- Poor quality sporting equipment
Where sporting equipment is not maintained by the owner of the equipment, visiting sports people and athletes who attempt to use the faulty equipment may become injured (for example, faulty gym equipment). The embarrassment of having all eyes on you when things go wrong with faulty sporting equipment can lead many people to believe that they were to blame – remember if you were correctly using the equipment, you should not become injured, meaning that where an injury does occur, you were not to blame.
- Poorly maintained sporting venues
Sporting venues that are held in a state of disrepair risk injury to visiting sportspeople or athletes. Issues could include wet walking surfaces, poor lighting, and poorly maintained performance surfaces (e.g. pitch or events field) that present tripping hazards. Again, the embarrassment of tripping could lead the affected individual not to begin a claim, believing that they should have been more careful – this is never the case where improper sports facilities lead to an injury the sportsperson or athlete could not be reasonably expected to take into consideration.
- Rioting or violent behavior of any kind
Sports gatherings can sometimes take on a violent crowd mentality, leading to injury when the crowd rushes forward to engage with the sports people or athletes. This type of injury is rare but is nevertheless the kind of outcome that would not be deemed reasonable for the injured person to expect.
Remember if you have suffered a sports injury of any kind, always speak to a lawyer for further information on whether you have a valid claim for personal injury compensation.
