… Today, the extremely active 40-year-old athlete and mother is setting her sights on the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and during this year of qualifications, knows that she has to keep her performance on track with good nutrition, staying dedicated to her daily routine and keeping a positive mindset—all advice she is eager to pass on.
… Kelly was found this past Friday evening in her Stanford apartment, having killed herself by inhaling toxic gas. The news sent shockwaves throughout the international cycling community. Kelly was a member of the Rally Pro Cycling professional road racing team and was known for her short hair, bright smile, and powerful time trial. She was also one of the world’s best riders on the velodrome and had won an Olympic silver medal in 2016 and three world titles with the U.S. women’s pursuit team. Teammates and friends described Kelly as a determined competitor who was sometimes shy, always focused on her training.
To the Catlin family, Kelly was someone else entirely. She was one of the triplets, with siblings Christine and Colin. She was a multi-talented child who excelled at sports, music, and even foreign languages. She read science fiction and marveled at stories of dragons and dinosaurs. She roared like a tiger when teased about her intense focus. She ate chocolate every day. She played classical violin, yet blared German heavy metal in her headphones. She could recite 400 digits of the mathematical constant Pi without hesitation. She handled intense pain with ease, and once declined anesthesia when doctors had to set her broken arm, fearing it might trigger a red flag with the U.S. anti-doping agency.
… More than 40 years later, the 1,000-mile Iditarod race was created, in part, to memorialize the relay and to preserve the tradition of long-distance dogsledding in a culture fast turning to snowmobiles for winter transportation. But who, I wondered, would want to drive a machine when you could travel by dogsled?
The 47th Annual Iditarod Trail Sled Dog Race kicked off on March 2nd at 10 a.m. with 52 teams. Vogue spoke to five mushers during pre-race training.
At 32, the three-time Olympic track star says she’s more passionate about running than ever. Needless to say, she knows a thing or two about staying focused and in love with the sport for the long haul. Here, she shares her secrets to success when it comes to getting older, wiser—and faster.
… As some of these things are often hard to talk about and we sometimes don’t have a lot of information around them, the first step in understanding your female athletes is opening a dialogue.
In her past roles as the Head of Physiology at the Scottish Institute of Sport, and the Director of Sports Science at The U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA), Sue Robson sat down with high performing and gold medal winning female athletes to do just that.
During these conversations, Sue realized this was actually the first time as an elite sports professional someone had had a conversation with them to go through their menstrual history, worked with them on performance intelligence and started working through information gathering with a view to improving their understanding of themselves and their performance.
… The big shift occurred when Sporting Omaha FC took its existing club and made the decision to elevate its program and become Nebraska’s only girls development academy. As part of the U.S. soccer structure development academy players for all teams must choose to participate in the academy full-time and forgo playing for their high school teams. The teams train several times per week and travel the country for matches.
That means about 40 girls who could be playing high school soccer this spring in Nebraska won’t.
… In the past 12 years, Japan has collected 24 medals from the world championships – including eight golds – in singles’ skating. How did a tiny island nation in Asia with a limited number of year-round ice rinks build such a strong team?
That is the question asked over and over.
Yoshiko Kobayashi from the Japanese Skating Federation agreed to give her thoughts on this in a phone interview:
This study aimed to analyze the daily heart rate variability (HRV) in well-trained female cyclists during the 2017 Tour de France circuit and to relate it to the load and perceived exertion response. Methods
Ten female cyclists volunteered to participate in the study. HRV was recorded with a portable heart rate monitor each morning at rest in supine (7 min.) and upright (7 min.) positions, as well as throughout each day’s stage. Pre-Tour baseline HRV recordings were made, as well as during the four weeks following completion of the Tour. Exercise daily load was assessed using the training impulse score (TRIMPS). Post-exercise rate of perceived exertion (RPE) was assessed daily using the Borg CR-10 scale. Results
The results show a HRV imbalance, increase of sympathetic and decrease of vagal activities respectively, along the event that correlated with rate of perceived exertion (r = 0.46), training impulse score (r = 0.60), and kilometers (r = 046). The greatest change in HRV balance was observed the days after the greatest relative physical load. Mean heart rate and heart rate variability values returned to their baseline values one week after completion of the event. Conclusions
Despite incomplete recovery from day-to-day, fatigue is not summative or augmented with each successive stage and its physical load. Just one week is sufficient to restore baseline values. Heart rate and HRV can be used as a tool to strategically plan the effort of female cyclists that participate in multi-stage events.
As the demand for personalized marketing and products continues to blossom, L’Oréal announced a partnership with microbial genomics company uBiome this week at the South by Southwest conference.
The partnership from the beauty giant’s technology incubator lets consumers submit cheek-swab samples — similar to buzzy genomics biotech company 23andMe — which uBiome analyzes to determine a user’s skin health based on the ecosystem of microbes of bacteria, viruses, fungi and other microorganisms that live on the skin and can cause acne, eczema and skin irritations when it is imbalanced. Based on the results, a user can make more personalized product choices.
Objectives To describe: (1) how we developed a concussion module and (2) whether the concussion module is feasible (in terms of relevance, added value and suitability) and enhances knowledge and changes attitude of professional footballers about concussion.
Developing the concussion module We developed the concussion module based on two structured and systematic processes. First, our needs assessment (questionnaire and interviews) in professional football (especially players) revealed that a 5–10 min concussion module was needed, ideally disseminated during club visits. Second, the objectives were defined (from published literature and by experts) as to disseminate essential information about what concussion is (definition), how to recognise it and the importance of removing a player with (suspected) concussion from the football field. We included an introductory video featuring a high-profile professional footballer and an animated educational component on defining concussion, recognising it and removing affected players from the field.
Feasibility and effect A quasiexperimental study (pretest post-test design) was conducted among 61 professional footballers. These players were asked to complete two questionnaires related to knowledge about and attitude towards concussion and feasibility of the module: one before and one after viewing the concussion module. Potential increase in knowledge and attitude was explored by comparing the pretest and post-test scores of the Rosenbaum Concussion Knowledge and Attitudes Survey with the non-parametric Wilcoxon signed-rank test (p<0.05). The mean knowledge score of the participants was stable between tests (Z=213; p=0.16), while mean attitude score increased significantly (Z=331; p=0.01). Nearly all participants (85%–100%) were positive about the relevance, added value, duration and form of the concussion module.
Conclusion The developed educational concussion module leads to better attitude of professional footballers towards concussion. [full text]
… About 10 percent of reproductive-age women become pregnant each year in the United States, but far less research is done into pregnancy than into much less common conditions. The effect of medicines on pregnant women and their fetuses is rarely studied. Basic understanding of pregnancy itself is full of gaping scientific holes, mysteries that include how the placenta forms and what, exactly, controls the timing of birth. Some pregnancy experts call the placenta, an organ that is necessary for all human reproduction, the Rodney Dangerfield of the human body because it gets “no respect.”
The default assumption has long been — and, to a large extent, still is — that it’s essential to protect pregnant women from research, rather than ensure they benefit from its rapid progress. But concerted pressure from scientists and advocates is slowly beginning to change policy and research culture.
Cordasco et al. “Return to Sport and Reoperation Rates in Patients Under the Age of 20 After Primary Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction.” The American Journal of Sports Medicine (2019).
… On Jan. 30, Athletic Bilbao set a new attendance record when 48,121 fans watched its Copa de la Reina quarterfinal against Atletico de Madrid. That’s the largest crowd ever for a women’s soccer game in Spain. That’s also the largest Bilbao crowd to go to San Mamés Stadium for any soccer game this season, beating the men’s high mark of 46,884.
The Bilbao record-breaker begs the question: What’s going on with women’s soccer in Spain? Plus, it’s a good reminder that progress in women’s sports also happens outside the U.S.
The Guardian, Nicola Davis and Jordan Erica Webber from
Today is International Women’s Day, so Science Weekly is teaming up with the Guardian’s tech podcast, Chips with Everything. Together, they examine the gender data gap and the dangerous repercussions of a world built for men. [audio, 24:54]
… “All indications are that it will happen for the first time, which will be wonderful,” he said. “It speaks to the strength of the high-performance system and the investment that has been made across all the national governing bodies over the last 20 years.
“There really has been a concerted effort to focus attention on equality and opportunity for all to ensure we send a team that is reflective of a modern Britain.”
England, – who also oversaw the athlete delegation in Rio, where Team GB became the first nation to win more medals at the Games immediately after hosting a home Olympics – said another factor was the high number of successful athletes in past Olympics that had encouraged the current generation.
Canada’s Minister for Science and Sport announced on Wednesday the formation of an investigative unit to combat harassment, abuse and discrimination in sport, among other measures.
The New York Times; Marc Tracy, Karen Crouse and Matthew Futterman from
… “Unless the origin of the sport is anchored in women, like gymnastics or field hockey, I don’t think there’s a culture that starts with the premise: Women are going to be treated equally, or, we’re going to make up for the historical discrimination against women and make sure we’re going where we need to go,” said Donna Lopiano, a sports management consultant and former University of Texas athletics administrator, referring to both the national governing boards and to college sports.
