Sports injury in Australia

Ice and snow sports include bobsledding, skiing, snowboarding, snowmobiling and ice skating (alpine and downhill, freestyle, ice dancing, Nordic and cross country, snowboarding, ski jumping, snowmobiling, speed skating, tobogganing).

An estimated 247,900 Australians aged 15 and over participated in ice and snow sports in 2024–25 (ASC 2025). During this same period, there were around 1,500 injury hospitalisations that were attributed to ice and snow sports: 830 males and 670 females. The highest number of injury hospitalisations was among those aged 20–24 (195 cases), while the 0–4 age group had the lowest number of hospitalisations (3 cases) (Figure 22).

For more detail, see data table 5.

Trends over the past decade

From 2017–18 to 2024–25, the number of hospitalisations ranged from 400 to 1,100 for males and 380 to 890 for females (see Figure 23). Between 2017–18 to 2018–19, injury hospitalisation rates were increasing for females (from 6.7 to 7.4 hospitalisations per 100,000 population) and males (from 7.3 to 8.7 hospitalisations per 100,000 population).

For more detail, see data table 6.

From 2019–20 to 2021–22, injury hospitalisations fluctuated noticeably – a likely effect of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hospitalisation rates were at their lowest for males (3.3 hospitalisations per 100,000 population) and females (3.2 hospitalisations per 100,000 population) in 2020–21.

Across 2022–23 and 2024–25, injury hospitalisation rates have decreased for both males (from 7.2 to 6.3 hospitalisations per 100,000 population) and females (from 6.3 to 5.1 hospitalisations per 100,000 population).

Ice and snow sports categories

In 2024–25:

• One third of ice and snow sports injury hospitalisations were from snowboarding (Figure 24), with a rate of 2.5 hospitalisation per 100,000 for males (345 hospitalisations) and 0.9 per 100,000 for females (120 hospitalisations)
• Ice skating and ice dancing injury hospitalisations accounted for one quarter (23%) of total ice and snow sports categories with 350 hospitalisations (1.3 per 100,000 population)
• Almost 40% of recorded ice and snow sports injury hospitalisations were not specified.

For more detail, see data table 5.

Nature of injuries

For injury hospitalisations from ice and snow sports in 2024–25, the top three most injured body parts across all ages were:

• shoulder and upper limb, excluding wrist and hand (590 cases)
• hip and lower limb, excluding ankle and foot (530 cases)
• head and neck (145 cases) (Figure 25).

For more detail, see data table 13.

Fractures accounted for nearly two-thirds all injury hospitalisations (or 990 cases), followed by soft-tissue injuries (19% of injury hospitalisations or 280 cases). Intracranial injuries accounted for 4.5% of injury hospitalisations (or 68 cases), of which about 78% of these intracranial injury hospitalisations were concussions: around 32 males and 21 females.

The top three common causes of injury hospitalisations from ice and sports in 2024–25 were:

• falls (940 cases or 3.4 hospitalisations per 100,000 population)
• overexertion (71 cases or 0.3 hospitalisations per 100,000 population)
• contact with objects (e.g. being struck by objects such as a wall) (67 cases or 0.2 hospitalisations per 100,000 population).

Other causes not listed (including those unspecified causes of injury hospitalisations) contributed to a quarter of all injury hospitalisations from ice and snow sports.