What’s more brutal, boxing or ballet?

In the latest in his series on striking images, our columnist looks at our enthusiasm for painful pastimes THE NAKED EYE

extreme sport, people fishing regularly end up drowning.

Rugby supporters proudly boast their game is like American Football, but without all the girly padding. Not surprisingly, dislocated ankles, concussions, blackouts, shattered bones and torn ligaments are all commonplace.

Of course, the main cause of death in sport is brain trauma. The British Journal of Sports Medicine studied injuries to racing drivers, and concluded that the most demanding aspect of the sport is the high incidence of concussion, sometimes proving lethal or incapacitating.

But nothing worries physicians like boxing, and debate has been endless about whether the sport should be abolished. Since 1867 when the Marquess of Queensberry rules were first published, approximately 500 fighters have died in the ring. A report in the British Medical Journal quantified the serious injury rate to boxers during competition at 828 per 1,000 fighters.

However, human curiosity seems to trump concerns about safety. Californian teenagers introduced the world to butt-boarding — lying flat down on their skateboards to hurtle down steep open roads.

In Britain, David Kirke founded the Dangerous Sports Club and has even adapted the trebuchet, a medieval device for throwing rocks, to catapult enthusiasts from zero to 55 feet into the air in 1.9 seconds, hopefully to land in a net.

If you don’t feel like hurling yourself out of an airplane, or flying mid-air suspended on a kite, then underwater

In the past 10 years 42 people have collapsed and died while attempting to run a marathon

sports provide more buoyancy. They do, however, come with their own set of hazards. Master of the seas Jacques Cousteau invented the “Aqua-Lung” in 1943, effectively founding the British Sub-Aqua Club. With more than 35,000 members, a tally of its fatalities makes terrible reading — 197 deaths in just the past 12 years.

If you think you might be better off keeping fit by jogging around the park a few times, remember that longdistance running has been known to end in more than sore feet. In the past 10 years 42 people have collapsed and died while attempting to run a marathon — about the same number of fatalities as in sky-diving.

But of course there is one activity even diehard extreme sports fanatics would avoid. The excruciating torment of balancing on their toes en pointe for a few hours.

Charles Saatchi’s latest book is Holy Cow!, published by Palazzo Editions