Mikaela Shiffrin made her debut on the professional World Cup ski racing tour in 2011 when she was 15. Two years later, she was the first American to win two World Cup races before she was 18. A year after that, she was the youngest Olympic slalom champion in history.
Times have changed.
Before a recent race, Shiffrin was looking at the list of competitors when she realized — gasp! — she was older than nearly half the field.
“I’ve been used to being the baby,” said Shiffrin, 23. “But now I hear the birth year of some girls and I swear it sounds like ‘2017,’ and I’m like, ‘Wait, what?’”
… Olympic teammates hail her electrifying speed. Decker called [Kendall] Coyne Schofield the Connor McDavid of the team, referring to the Edmonton Oilers star and N.H.L. most valuable player who is also known for his speed. To the defender Kacey Bellamy, Coyne Schofield is “the fastest woman in the world.”
Coyne Schofield said she had had limited opportunities to work with skating coaches, although she did receive instruction from Kenny McCudden, the former skating and skills coach of the American Hockey League’s Chicago Wolves, who now works for the Columbus Blue Jackets.
“When I was younger, I played with the boys a lot, and it forced me to be a good skater, because I don’t have much size,” said Coyne Schofield, who won the 2016 Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award as the top N.C.A.A. women’s hockey player. “You had to keep up with them or get off the ice, especially when you have a ponytail coming out of your helmet.”
The aim of the current study was to analyze the influence of the timing of training and matches, and match location, on sleep pattern and nocturnal cardiac autonomic activity in female soccer players. A total of 17 female soccer players (age: 21.6 ± 2.3 years; mean ± SD) wore wrist actigraph units and heart rate (HR) monitors during night-sleep throughout 18 night-training days (NTD), 18 resting days (RD), and 6 match-days (MD; 3 away-matches [AM] and 3 home-matches [HM]) of the competitive period. Training load was quantified by session rating of perceived exertion (sRPE), heart rate (HR), training impulse (TRIMP), and subjective well-being. In NTD, sleep onset time and total sleep time were significantly impaired compared to MD (+ 1:47 [0:48; 1:55] hours and −1:35 [−1:42; −0:57] hours, respectively; p< 0.001; mean difference ± 95% confidence interval [CI]) and RD (+ 1:31 [0:52; 1:49] hours and −1:26 [−1:28; −0:55] hours, respectively; p< 0.001). In AM, sleep onset time was delayed compared to HM (+ 0:36 [0:12; 0:44] hours; p< 0.001). Sleep latency was higher in NTD compared to RD (+ 4 [2; 5] min; p< 0.001), as well as after AM compared to HM (+ 5 [1; 7] min; p< 0.001). HR during sleep was significantly increased after NTD and MD compared to RD (+ 4 [1; 5] b.p.m and + 3 [1; 4] b.p.m, respectively; p< 0.001). Furthermore, HR variability decreased after NTD and MD compared to RD (e.g., lnRMSSD, −0.09 [−0.18; −0.08] ln[ms] and −0.17 [−0.27; −0.11] ln[ms], respectively; p< 0.001). Overall, the time of day for soccer practice (i.e., training at night) and match location (i.e., away matches) may cause disruption in sleep patterns and/or in autonomic cardiac activity in female soccer players. Additionally, playing official matches during the day and training at night may affect nocturnal cardiac autonomic activity by decreasing vagal-related modulation and increasing HR during sleep.
Pamplin Media Group, InvestigateWest, Lee van der Voo from
… In Oregon, injury reports from public high schools analyzed by InvestigateWest and Pamplin Media Group mirrored that trend, showing soccer concussions were second to those from football between 2015 and 2017. What’s more, at the schools that included the gender of injured athletes, there were nearly twice as many reports of possible concussions for girls playing soccer than boys in the sport.
The rate of concussions in girls soccer worries local experts like Jim Chesnutt, a doctor in sports medicine at Oregon Health & Science University. Those injuries are not widely recognized, he said, even as concussion rates rise for girls’ playing soccer.
There is limited information on the appropriate timing of return to sports after anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction. A composite test was developed to assess the athlete’s ability to return to sports after ACL reconstruction: the Knee Santy Athletic Return To Sport (K-STARTS) test. Hypothesis:
The K-STARTS test meets validation criteria for an outcome score assessing readiness for return to sports after ACL reconstruction. Study Design:
Diagnostic study. Level of Evidence:
Level 3. Methods:
A prospective comparative study identified 410 participants: 371 participants who had undergone ACL reconstruction and a control group of 39 healthy participants. The K-STARTS score is calculated as the sum of 7 tests (8 components), for a maximal value of 21 points. Construct validity, internal consistency, discriminant validity, and sensitivity to change were used to validate this new test. Results:
The K-STARTS assessment showed a high completion rate (100%), high reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient, 0.87; coefficient of variation, 7.8%), and high sensitivity to change. There was moderate correlation with the ACL Return to Sports after Injury scale (ACL-RSI) and hop tests. There were no ceiling or floor effects. There was a significant difference between K-STARTS scores assessed at 6 and 8 months postoperatively (11.2 ± 2.7 vs 17.1 ± 3.2; P < 0.001). The K-STARTS score in the control group was significantly higher than that in the ACL reconstruction group (17.3 ± 2.1 and 13.7 ± 3.8, respectively; P < 0.001).
Conclusion:
The K-STARTS test is an objective outcome measure for functional improvement after ACL reconstruction. Clinical Relevance:
It is important for the clinician to determine when return to sports is optimal after ACL reconstruction to reduce the current high risk of reinjury.
Sports Medicine Research: In the Lab & In the Field, Jane McDevitt from
Take Home Message: Athletes with a concussion had greater exposure to head impacts on either the day of injury or in the season leading up to the injury compared to peers matched on the same team and playing the same position.
A study conducted by the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO) and the University of Ottawa has found stark differences in concussion recovery times between adolescent male and female patients.
The authors of the study, led by U of O psychology professor Andrée-Anne Ledoux, hope to create a toolkit that care providers can use to better plan concussion recovery treatment timelines.
Today FIFA launched its first-ever global strategy for women’s football which charts the course for how FIFA will work with confederations and Member Associations (MAs), clubs and players, the media, fans and other stakeholders to realise the full potential that exists within the women’s game.
FIFA strongly believes that women’s football brings one very important benefit to the many young girls and women involved in the game – empowerment. Encouraging empowerment through football, growing the game, getting more girls involved in it earlier and keeping women in football longer are all key elements of FIFA’s Women’s Football Strategy.
… The Premier League’s appointment of Dinnage is in sharp contrast to the English Football Association, which has long been criticised for its apparent apathy towards the inclusion and progression of women. Heather Rabbatts, who trained as a barrister but made her name as the youngest local authority chief executive was the first, and still sole, woman to be appointed to the FA board – and that was as recently as 2012. Similarly, both the English Cricket Board and the English Rugby Union have only two female board members.
It would be easy to see Dinnage’s leadership of arguably the world’s most successful sporting brand as a sign that women’s representation at the highest levels of sport governance is finally improving – after many years of male dominance. But it’s important to be wary of making assumptions of widespread, inevitable progress on the basis of one isolated example.
… In Budget 2018, the Government of Canada announced a target to achieve gender equity in sport at every level by 2035. This included an initial commitment of $30 million over three years to support data and research into innovative practices to promote women and girls’ participation in sport, and to support national sports organizations in promoting greater inclusion of women and girls in all facets of sport.
The Minister of Science and Sport has convened a Working Group on Gender Equity in Sport to gather the experiences, perspectives and insights of 12 champions for gender equity in sport and to provide a range of views and advice on strategies to better understand and serve the specific needs of women and girls in sport.
… Riley Morrison wrote a letter to Curry explaining how she is “a big fan” of his and enjoys attending Golden State Warriors games with her dad. She’s about to start a new basketball season and wanted to wear the three-time NBA champion’s Under Armour Curry 5 sneakers. Unfortunately, Riley and her dad went to buy the Curry 5 online and found they’re only sold in boys’ sizes, prompting her to bring this to Curry’s attention.
Becky Hammon became a trailblazer after becoming the first paid female assistant in the NBA. Now it is time for more women to get a chance to break into the league.
nature ecology & evolution, Kathleen E. Egrogan from
Evidence overwhelmingly shows structural barriers to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, and suggests that the onus cannot be on women alone to confront the gender bias in our community. Here, I share my experience as a scientist and a woman who has collected data during more than ten years of scientific training about how best to navigate the academic maze of biases and barriers.
