These men and women are a different breed than my generation. Broken bones including broken vertebrae are taken in stride as part of the cost of doing business. Check out the obituary of one of the would - be participants who died during training just a few days before the events:
http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/story/2012-01-19/freestyle-skier-sarah-burke-death/52680120/1
It's a whole different world out there. I mean, those snowmobile jumpers are just fearless. Half pipe and slopestyle events feature unbelievable feats of derring-do-one right after another - any one of which would have been 'you gotta see it to believe it' unreal just a few years ago. These folks are brave. And like sammy says, they are more or less telling the organizers, we'll let you know when this is too dangerous. How they get insurance is beyond me.