Katie Tannenbaum, a skeleton slider from the U.S. Virgin Islands, struck a broom going between 50 and 60 mph during a World Cup run in Igls, Austria back in December 2020. NBC Sports reports brooms are used to sweep snow off tracks, but race officials said this particular broom was blown into the track by the wind. Katie is okay but her sled is chunked:
“I’ll save you all the sweeping puns My helmet and mouth guard did their jobs wonderfully. My new white helmet has a tiny broom colored scratch for me to remember this day by (how could I forget?). And my jaw is a little tight. My sled, however, took on some serious damage. The carbon fiber pod that covers the underside of my sled has a big chunk missing and a crack running down the front-center. It’s pricey and will take a while to get a replacement, but it’s fixable.”
p.s. this isn’t the first time a skeleton slider has punched through a broom. In 2015, Canadian Jane Channell was struck in the left shoulder by a broom that slipped out of a track worker’s hands at a World Cup event.