… Bartoli recently featured in Roma’s “The Big Interview” segment on its official website, and the veteran defender provided some fascinating insight into her own career and the future of women’s football in Italy. Here are some select questions and answers from the interview, but head over to Roma’s website to read the whole thing.
AS Roma: How did the other kids react when you asked to play with them?
Elisa Bartoli: “It wasn’t easy at the start because I was a girl. Once they saw that I could play a bit and that I didn’t give up they changed their minds and realized I could hold my own. The best times were when our courtyard lot played against the kids from the church – with Coca Cola as the prize! We would make jokes about us being the underdogs because we had a girl on our team but it was great fun when we won.
… In baseball, Tommy John surgery is an occupational hazard, and during the pandemic the procedure presents an ethical dilemma. Players who need the surgery now or will soon, such as Phillies reliever Seranthony Dominguez, may have trouble scheduling the procedure in the coming weeks, essentially putting their career on hold.
On the other side of the coin, many players are nearing the end of their Tommy John surgery rehab, and are close to resuming their careers and helping their teams in 2020. Some of those players could even impact postseason races. Here are 13 players on the way back from Tommy John surgery and how much they could contribute in 2020.
tlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff expressed confidence Tuesday that three-time Pro Bowl running back Todd Gurley will pass the team’s pending physical despite well-documented concerns about the health of Gurley’s left knee.
Gurley, the 2017 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, who was released by the Los Angeles Rams on March 19, faced lingering questions about his knee as his time with the Rams came to a close. The Rams’ brass never confirmed a report about the 25-year-old Gurley having arthritis in the knee, which was surgically repaired in 2014.
Landow’s staff’s plan began months ago, when the group designed individual sets of take-home voluntary workouts for each player on the 90-man roster.
Those plans are designed around reducing the amount of weight lifted, increasing repetitions and slowing down the pace of each workout.
“The offseason is the time that we kind of rebuild the body,” Landow told DenverBroncos.com this week. “With the take-home program that the guys have already, that should at least lay a pretty good foundation. … You do those things to really work on the connected tissue, the tendon strength of the muscle. You’re trying to preserve the strength and the stability of the joints.”
… In Major League Soccer (MLS), many teams have been working on implementing remote systems that allow them to comprehensively monitor athlete activity remotely.
A common device has been Catapult’s Athlete Management System, allowing coaches to track their players’ work remotely and schedule sessions as required.
Mat Young, business development manager at Catapult, says: “The challenges they have all faced is they have no access to athletes and the athletes have no access to a facility, they are all locked up.
… “This is service many of us have never been called to do,” Trudeau said. “Staying home is your way to serve. So be smart about the choices you make. That’s how you will serve your country.”
These unnerving times resonate in a visceral way with sports psychiatrist Carla Edwards and sports medicine doctor Jane Thornton. The two felt compelled to bring together their experience and perspective to pen a recent post that now lives on the British Journal of Sports Medicine website.
Throughout the post, Edwards and Thornton outline the many fears and concerns athletes have right now and how their mental health could be affected. They finish by sharing a number of resources on how to cope and where to go for help.
Bundesliga clubs were allowed to return to team training on Monday (Apr 6), with some opting to train players in small groups amid strict measures to contain the spread of COVID-19.
Football in Germany has been suspended for almost a month and the German Football League (DFL) has said the ban will remain in place for the top divisions at least until Apr 30.
Clubs, however, were given the all clear to resume training this week, with champions Bayern Munich deciding to train players in small groups to minimise the risk of infection.
“Obviously all health guidelines are being adhered to,” the club said in a statement.
A smart toilet boasting pressure sensors, artificial intelligence and a camera has been unveiled by researchers who say it could provide a valuable way to keep tabs on our health.
The model is the latest version of an idea that has been around for several years: a system that examines our daily movements in an effort to spot the emergence of diseases. Such an approach, experts say, has an advantage over wearable devices, since individuals do not need to remember to use the system.
“We have developed a passive human health monitoring system that can be easily incorporated into a normal daily routine, requiring minimal or even no human intervention,” the team behind the new toilet report.
In recent weeks, officials within the NBA and NBPA have been collaborating in assessing the viability of multiple blood-testing devices for the coronavirus that could provide accurate results within a matter of minutes, a process that would hopefully enable the league to track the virus in what is considered a critical first step toward resuming play in the near future.
Multiple league sources close to the situation said the league and players union have been looking at what those familiar with the matter describe as “diabetes-like” blood testing in which someone could, with the prick of a finger, be tested quickly, and results could be gained inside of 15 minutes.
Baltimore Ravens coach John Harbaugh is worried that sensitive team information is more vulnerable to getting stolen because of the technology that NFL teams are relying upon to connect with players during the coronavirus pandemic.
At a time when teams are preparing to go virtual — from playbooks to meetings — Harbaugh has immediately texted the Ravens’ information technology members when he’s read about Zoom or other online resources getting hacked. He’s been assured that everything is secure, but he reminds them about how other companies believed the same before their customers’ accounts were compromised.
Ice hockey is a fast‐paced collision sport with a high injury rate. Lower extremity pathology accounts for nearly one third of these injuries. Given the unique nature of the sport, there are various injuries seen more commonly in ice hockey players, including “late bite” (or “skate bite”). Lace bite is an inflammation of the tibialis anterior tendon which often affects hockey players in the beginning of the season. This is often caused by irritation of the tibialis anterior from the tongues of skates which have not yet been broken in. These patients often present with edema, tenderness over the anterior tibial tendon, and pain with dorsiflexion. Treatment of lace bite involves skate modifications such as breaking in the skate before increased play, and padding over the anterior ankle to reduce pressure from the tongue. Topical and systemic anti‐inflammatories, along with icing and activity modification are also helpful in reducing symptoms. These injuries are often short‐lived and resolve within 2 weeks. By having a better understanding of this injury, team physicians will be able to more promptly diagnose and effectively treat this condition.
SB Nation, Beyond the Boxscore blog, Bill Thompson from
… From those details one thing became clear: the MLBPA still does not understand or care about the concept of solidarity with minor leagues. MLB players are guilty of the same shortsighted thinking they usually attribute to the owners. At a time when it should be easy for the players to garner goodwill against the malicious and conniving owners the players took a look at every soon to be drafted minor leaguer, present minor leaguer, and future international signee and said, “You’re on your own, friends.”
It’s easy for those of us who write about the game of baseball, specifically MLB, to rag on the owners in article after article. The owners deserve all the derision that comes their way. The vitriol most of us harbor towards ownership is because we are viewing the exchanges between MLB and everyone else as an issue of solidarity. It is that solidarity that allows for non-union folk to have the same goals as those in a union. More importantly to the matter at hand, solidarity creates a situation where the MLB players get theirs while at the same time making sure that the MLB players to come are protected as well. Needless to say, the deal that gave current MLB players the service time concessions they desired is not an example of solidarity.
Athletic directors at the nation’s biggest sports schools are bracing for a potential financial crisis related to the coronavirus pandemic.
According to a survey released Thursday by LEAD1, an association of athletic directors from 130 major college football schools, 63% forecast a worst-case scenario in which their revenues decrease by at least 20% during the 2020-21 school year. Even an abbreviated football season could cause schools to lose that much.
LEAD1 and Teamworks, a company that created an app designed to help keep teams and athletic departments connected, conducted the survey of more than 100 ADs from schools in Division I’s Football Bowl Subdivision. “The State of Athletics in the Face of the Coronavirus” provides a sobering glimpse of the top concerns for the wealthiest athletic departments in the country.
Data: it’s not usually the most emotionally charged subject. But in the aftermath of Bayern Munich’s 2016 European exit at the hands of Atlético Madrid, the blustering of a wild-eyed Craig Burley would have the uninitiated believing the polar opposite.
“Are you talking to me about expected goals in a Champions League semi-final that they’ve just lost?! What an absolute load of nonsense that is. I expect things at Christmas from Santa Claus but they don’t come, right? What I deal in is facts. That’s what the game is about. Whether you like it, I like it or anybody likes it, the game is about results. That’s why managers change jobs and get the sack, right? None of this nerd nonsense about expected goals.”
His fury was directed at fellow ESPN pundit Gabriele Marcotti. The unfortunate Marcotti had the temerity to highlight the fact that, although Bayern had failed to win the match by the two-goal margin which would have seen them reach the final, Pep Guardiola’s side had outperformed Diego Simeone’s in terms of xG – and by a thoroughly convincing margin, too.