Sawt Falasteen - Australian Olympic snowboarder airlifted to hospital with broken neck

The 35-year-old suffered the injury on Monday but complained of "worsening neck pain" the following day, the Australian Olympic Committee said.

A CT scan identified that his neck was broken in two places and he was put on a helicopter to Milan.

It is one of several injury blows to hit Australia at the Olympics in Italy.

Another snowboarder, Misaki Vaughan, is also out after failing a head injury assessment following a fall on Monday.

"My heart breaks on their behalf," Australia's chef de mission Alisa Camplin-Warner said.

"Unfortunately, with winter sport, injuries happen along the way," she said.

"With 53 athletes doing relatively high-risk sports, it's not something that's unusual, I'm afraid to say."

Australian former world champion Laura Peel also suffered a knee injury last week in training.

And fellow freestyle skier Daisy Thomas was ruled out of an event on Saturday after crashing during practice.

R.Halabi--SF-PST