First it was midfielder Samantha Mewis to Manchester City. Then midfielder Rose Lavelle, also to Man City. Then defender Emily Sonnett to Göteborg FC. And more moves abroad for U.S. women’s national team players are in the works, sources told Yahoo Sports.
Calling it a mass exodus of USWNT stars out of the National Women’s Soccer League wouldn’t necessarily be wrong. More accurately, it’s an exodus from the United States, where the COVID-19 pandemic is still not under control.
Players who hadn’t expressed interest in playing club soccer outside of the U.S. are considering it now, according to multiple sources who spoke to Yahoo Sports.
For some players, it’s over concerns that life won’t resume to normal anytime soon in America, where both cases and deaths are higher than for many similarly wealthy nations. Joining a team abroad is a way out of the mess the U.S. is dealing with.
D.J. Fluker slimmed down to show he’s ready for the Baltimore Ravens’ supersized mission.
Before his first training camp with the Ravens, Fluker used increased workouts and reduced-calorie meals to cut his body fat in half, going from 44% to 22%. His hope is all of this hard work will help him become the answer to the biggest question facing Baltimore: Who’s replacing eight-time Pro Bowl guard Marshal Yanda?
In July, the heads of the Health Department of the Barça Innovation Hub -the sports innovation laboratory that contributes to improving the performance of the club’s athletes- presented to FIFA their first conclusions from a scientific study carried out with the professional FC Barcelona Women players. The study consisted of examining different medical and physical parameters for the footballers, as well as their responses to training and competition. The main objective of the study was to determine the impact that sport has on the bodies of athletes and, based on the conclusions obtained, be able to optimise sporting performance and prevent the risk of injury to footballers in general.
FIFA funded the project with the wish to deepen medical knowledge of women’s football, and FC Barcelona were the club chosen to carry out the research -taking into account their history and previous experience in health studies and sports medicine through the Barça Innovation Hub. Since 2017, Barça have launched 31 research projects in the field of sports medicine, involving different professional sports.
For this study, testing began in July 2018 and involved 30 professional players. During the two years of research, different physiological, anthropometric, nutritional and psychological profiles for players were defined, requiring the participation of different specialists in areas such as traumatology, nutrition, endocrinology, gynecology, psychology and training theory.
… We are talking about Eric Cressey, the Yankees’ first-year director of player health and performance, because 2020 quickly has turned into an undesired repeat of the defending AL East champion’s 2019 injury nightmare. On Saturday, a day off thanks to the Mets’ COVID issues, the Yankees worked out at Yankee Stadium and made three people available to the media via Zoom calls: manager Aaron Boone and, fittingly, pitchers Zack Britton and James Paxton, both of whom suffered deactivating ailments during the Rays’ Yankee Stadium takeover.
It would be beyond unfair to primarily blame Cressey, a celebrity hire of sorts, or his underlings for the damage incurred on their watch. Too many events beyond their control have led to an astounding 10 Yankees players joining the injured list with the regular season celebrating its one-month anniversary Sunday. Yet it would be journalistically derelict to not discuss the ongoing agita of Yankees injuries.
“While we did the overhaul, the overhaul came in January,” Boone said, referring to Cressey’s arrival. “[We] haven’t had an offseason yet since we overhauled it. It’s kind of all been on the fly, getting up to speed through spring training.
To really understand why German managers are outperforming their European rivals, you need to go to Cologne, specifically to the city of Bonn.
Bonn is most famous for being home to Beethoven House, a museum to mark the iconic composer’s birthplace. In footballing terms, the game’s best flock to Bonn for more than just music.
There you find the Hennes-Weisweiler Academy, the location of the most prestigious coaching course in the country. It is so successful it makes a case to be the world’s leader.
… “It’s a great sign and shows that Germany stands for good training methods and has a wonderful teaching staff for coaches,” said Erich Rutemoller, who was head of training for those looking to achieve their coaching licences at the German Football Association (DFB) for a good number of years, and is proud of the work done by his successors Frank Wormuth and Daniel Niedzkowski and the team that they work with.
Rutemoller had both Bayern coach Flick (in 2003) and PSG coach Tuchel (in 2006) as his students when they were applying for their licences. “Flick came to coaching training and wanted to learn absolutely everything. Along with Thomas Doll, he was the best in his year. His methods stood out to me and it comes as no surprise that he is where he is now,” explained Rutemoller, who has gone on to work in an advisory capacity with Koln, to FIFA.com.
… [Joshua] Cheptegei ran 12:35.36, slicing almost two seconds off Bekele’s record. In doing so, he beat the lights—specifically, the Wavelight system that World Athletics finally approved in 2018. Much like the ITA’s set-up, Wavelength sends a beam of lights flowing smoothly along the inner curb of the track at whatever pace you program into it with your phone. For Cheptegei’s race, the lights were set at world record pace. The result? His performance was perhaps the most evenly paced 5,000-meter record ever run. (A video of the race is here.)
Back in 2006, South African researchers Ross Tucker, Michael Lambert, and Tim Noakes published an analysis of pacing in world records for races between 800 and 10,000 meters. The key finding was that, for distances longer than 800 meters, the data showed a very distinctive pattern featuring a fast start, a steady pace (with perhaps a gradual slowdown) in the middle, then a fast finish.
When they started their business Kinexon, Alexander Hüttenbrink and Oliver Trinchera were mainly focused on capturing performance data in sports arenas. But now, their Safezone wearable is getting attention all over the world. It’s even playing a role in the restart of the major US sports leagues. Kinexon started as a spinoff of the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
Kinexon’s hardware and software trace the movements of athletes, but can also be used to automate production processes in the industry. At the beginning of the Corona pandemic, the start-up quickly developed a system that issues a warning in case of inadequate social distancing and which also supports contact tracing.
Many neurological and musculoskeletal diseases impair movement, which limits people’s function and social participation. Quantitative assessment of motion is critical to medical decision-making but is currently possible only with expensive motion capture systems and highly trained personnel. Here, we present a method for predicting clinically relevant motion parameters from an ordinary video of a patient. Our machine learning models predict parameters include walking speed (r = 0.73), cadence (r = 0.79), knee flexion angle at maximum extension (r = 0.83), and Gait Deviation Index (GDI), a comprehensive metric of gait impairment (r = 0.75). These correlation values approach the theoretical limits for accuracy imposed by natural variability in these metrics within our patient population. Our methods for quantifying gait pathology with commodity cameras increase access to quantitative motion analysis in clinics and at home and enable researchers to conduct large-scale studies of neurological and musculoskeletal disorders. [full text]
The likes of Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo and Leeds United counterpart Marcelo Bielsa will wear watches that will alert them to players showing signs of fatigue, that could lead to muscle injury
… “Hawk-Eye’s impressive 20-year history in sports tracking has resulted in industry-leading expertise and gave us a high degree of confidence in this partnership,” said Jason Gaedtke, MLB Chief Technology Officer. “We are already seeing excellent results during the early part of our season. We set a high bar for performance of the new tracking system and Hawk-Eye has consistently met and exceeded those expectations. We look forward to working with Paul and his team to continue to innovate on this platform in the years ahead.”
This new platform provides MLB and clubs with a continuous data stream to better assess all on-field activity, including pitcher/batter mechanics, pitch execution, batted-ball trajectory and defense metrics. The Hawk-Eye platform integrates with MLB infrastructure and Google Cloud to power MLB’s Statcast system with more accurate data and advanced metrics for stat-loving fans to enjoy.
As fans, attorneys and health care professionals debate the wisdom of requiring college athletes to sign COVID-19 liability waivers, Sportico has learned that the NCAA’s catastrophic injury insurance program would complicate the practicability of such waivers.
The NCAA fully pays premiums on a catastrophic insurance program, which covers student-athletes who accidentally suffer serious bodily harms while playing NCAA sports. These are not ordinary injuries that heal up quickly. Instead, they result, or potentially result, in partial or full disability. According to the policy summary, a copy of which Sportico has obtained, the program has a $90,000 deductible and kicks in after other sources of insurance and benefits have been exhausted.
The catastrophic insurance program does not cover disease or illness—unless, per the policy summary, such an affliction “is a direct result” of a covered accident. The NCAA has cautiously addressed the relationship of COVID-19 to catastrophic insurance.
All you hear during the lead-up to the annual NFL draft is how important game film — or “tape work” — is to the scouting process of collegiate prospects. First-round picks almost always have to check at least two boxes — good tape and above average athleticism.
No matter how good a prospect, it’s almost impossible to be a first-round pick without having good tape from the previous fall. And for the players who might test poorly physically, having good tape is critical to getting drafted at all, let alone signing as an undrafted free agent.
The last couple of weeks of Champions League action asked some serious questions about the future of Lionel Messi at Barcelona, Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City project, and most important, the soft sartorial decisions of Europe’s sharpest tactical minds