As the Olympic flame completed its difficult journey from Greece to Japan, there are growing health concerns from athletes in the amidst of the coronavirus pandemic.
Sandi Morris, an Olympic pole vaulter and native Arkansan, speaking out over concerns on social media.
Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill and a host of leading sporting figures will write to Boris Johnson in support of The Telegraph’s Equality Check campaign for urgent efforts to tackle discrimination against women during Covid-19.
Judy Murray, Denise Lewis, Gabby Logan and former England netball captain Ama Agbeze are also among signatories on a letter urging Government to halt the upsurge of inequality in sport and beyond as Britain begins its recovery from lockdown.
Olympic gold medalist Lewis expressed dismay at the failure by authorities to halt a reversal around women’s sport during Covid-19 as she joined the campaign.
The retired heptathlete, 47, says she is saddened that “men’s sport has very much been the priority” as Britain emerges from lockdown with a male-dominated weekend packed with Premier League football on Sky and the BBC.
Sleep scientist Matthew Walker hopes that improved resting habits that have emerged during the pandemic can be incorporated into our future life. Could companies adjust their working patterns, for example, to help employees sleep better, he asks.
AJC.com, Atlanta Journal Constitution, Chip Towers from
… Georgia basketball players normally would have been on campus for at least three weeks now for voluntary summer workouts. Most of them probably never would have left Athens, if not for the pandemic that forced the close of campuses nationwide in mid-March.
But all Georgia athletes have been asked to continue to prepare for their respective seasons. UGA currently plans to resume face-to-face instruction for fall semester, which begins in August. If that happens, then the basketball season will resume as scheduled.
After a virtual team meeting Thursday night, 30 UCLA football players united in support behind a document they believe will protect them in their upcoming return to campus amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The document, reviewed by the Los Angeles Times late Thursday, asserts that players do not trust UCLA to act in their best interest, particularly in regard to their health, a realm where it says the school has “perpetually failed us,” citing “neglected and mismanaged injury cases.” The document does not provide examples.
The players demanded that a “third-party health official” be on hand for all football activities to see that protocols for COVID-19 prevention are being followed; that anonymous whistleblower protections are provided for athletes and staff to report violations; and that each player can make a decision about whether to come back to Westwood without fear of losing his scholarship or other retaliation.
We investigated the association of multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) with athlete status and power/speed performance in elite male youth soccer players (ESP) and control participants (CON) at different stages of maturity. ESP (n = 535; aged 8–23 years) and CON (n = 151; aged 9–26 years) were genotyped for 10 SNPs and grouped according to years from predicted peak-height-velocity (PHV), i.e. pre- or post-PHV, to determine maturity status. Participants performed bilateral vertical countermovement jumps, bilateral horizontal-forward countermovement jumps, 20m sprints and modified 505-agility tests. Compared to CON, pre-PHV ESP demonstrated a higher ACTN3 (rs1815739) XX (‘endurance’) genotype frequency distribution, while post-PHV ESP revealed a higher frequency distribution of the PPARA (rs4253778) C-allele, AGT (rs699) GG genotype and NOS3 (rs2070744) T-allele (‘power’ genotypes/alleles). BDNF (rs6265) CC, COL5A1 (rs12722) CC and NOS3 TT homozygotes sprinted quicker than A-allele carriers, CT heterozygotes and CC homozygotes, respectively. COL2A1 (rs2070739) CC and AMPD1 (rs17602729) GG homozygotes sprinted faster than their respective minor allele carrier counterparts in CON and pre-PHV ESP, respectively. BDNF CC homozygotes jumped further than T-allele carriers, while ESP COL5A1 CC homozygotes jumped higher than TT homozygotes. To conclude, we have shown for the first time that pre- and post-PHV ESP have distinct genetic profiles, with pre-PHV ESP more suited for endurance, and post-PHV ESP for power and speed (the latter phenotypes being crucial attributes for post-PHV ESP). We have also demonstrated that power, acceleration and sprint performance were associated with five SNPs, both individually and in combination, possibly by influencing muscle size and neuromuscular activation.
At the turn of the millennium, a review paper was published in this journal on talent identification and development in soccer (Williams & Reilly, 2000). In the current paper, we assess progress made in this field over the last twenty years relative to the areas for future research highlighted in the original review. We evaluate developments in light of the calls made by Williams and Reilly to: a) undertake more multidisciplinary rather than mono-disciplinary research; b) embrace longitudinal rather than cross-sectional research designs; c) expand the research base on female football; and, d) better identify the subjective criteria used by scouts when selecting one player over another for entry into a formalised training environment. The body of mono-disciplinary research on this topic continues to expand, and progress has been made in publishing multidisciplinary, prospective, longitudinal data sets, along with advanced statistical modelling procedures, as well as in identifying the experiential criteria used by scouts. We found some variables in these studies have predictive value from adolescence to adult performance level in soccer. We present suggestions for future research to enhance knowledge and understanding of the best practices underpinning the identification and development of future generations of professional players.
… Unlike the dreary video conferences that have become a staple of Corporate America in 2020, the Bulldogs are gaining knowledge and enjoying their time in front of a computer screen.
It helps that the guests on Bryant’s calls are more fun than the topics others trudge through with a lukewarm coffee. They have included two-time NBA Champion Norris Cole, Milwaukee Bucks assistant (and Bryant alum) Josh Longstaff, and former Iona coach Tim Cluess, who went to six NCAA Tournaments in the 2010s.
The insight gained from these leaders and champions in the game has been valuable for Bryant’s newcomers as they prepare for their first season in Smithfield.
NFL players and coaches went home in March and stayed there for the next few months, along with most of the world.
Football pads were replaced by iPads. Handshakes and high-fives gave way to emojis and video chats.
When the coronavirus pandemic forced everyone indoors — away from their everyday environments — creativity was the key. To working. To keeping in touch. And, for those making their living playing on football fields, to thinking up ways to bond as teammates.
So, many played video games. Some held workout challenges. One team had an online cooking competition. Another designed movie posters.
Sean Harrington, A14, and Kevin Kusch left enviable jobs last year. They had managed the software and analytics teams, respectively, for New England Patriots, and witnessed the thrill of two Super Bowl championships.
Today they are entrepreneurs on a mission. Their innovation is Notemeal, a web and mobile app platform that aims to give sports performance dietitians the tools they need to deliver educational nutrition advice to top athletes.
“There were lots of tools to help strength coaches and rehab directors connect with their athletes,” said Harrington. “But there was no tool to help dietitians support athletes with respect to their everyday nutrition. And good nutrition is something they can certainly control to optimize performance.”
In groundbreaking new research, mechanical engineers and computer scientists at the University of Minnesota have developed a 3D printing technique that uses motion capture technology, similar to that used in Hollywood movies, to print electronic sensors directly on organs that are expanding and contracting. The new 3D printing technique could have future applications in diagnosing and monitoring the lungs of patients with COVID-19.
The research is published in Science Advances, a peer-reviewed scientific journal published by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
… “Our staff have been entrusted with the well-being of every player on our team,” Schiano said in a statement June 13. “This is an immense responsibility, and one we take very seriously.‘’ Schiano added he’ll “work closely” with Joshua Bershad, the Rutgers athletics chief medical officer, “to provide a safe return to campus” for the approximately 115 players on his team.
For his part, Bershad said his experience as the executive vice president for physician services at RWJBarnabas Health will come in handy as the medical facility’s team prioritize the safety of the players on campus.
“We utilize the Rutgers Saliva Test extensively in our process, which is yet another advantage of the partnership between a cutting edge research university like Rutgers and top-flight health system like RWJBarnabas Health,‘’ Bershad said last week.
The importance of optimal well-being and mental health in elite athletes has received increasing attention and debate in both the academic and public discourse. Despite the number of challenges and risk factors for mental health and well-being recognised within the performance lifestyle of elite athletes, the evidence base for intervention is limited by a number of methodological and conceptual issues. Notably, there exists an increasing emphasis on the development of appropriate sport-specific measures of athlete well-being, which are required to underpin strategies targeted at the protection and enhancement of psychosocial functioning. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to review psychometric issues in well-being research and discuss the implications for the measurement of well-being in sport psychology research. Drawing on the broader literature in related disciplines of psychology, the narrative discusses four key areas in the scale development process: conceptual and theoretical issues, item development issues, measurement and scoring issues, and analytical and statistical issues. To conclude, a summary of the key implications for sport psychology researchers seeking to develop a measure of well-being is presented. [full text]
Friday’s soccer news starts with a question that may only be an issue in retrospect. With all of the world’s professional sports leagues impacted by the global pandemic looking to get the games in, will this be the summer of too many options? The Bundesliga is the only major European league that will finish by the end of the month, but we now know the 2019-20 Champions and Europa Leagues will be running into late August. In between, there’s La Liga with at least a game a day and the rest of Europe pushing to finish the schedule. That creates a necessity of games, with broadcasters more than willing to make up for lost time by showing most of them.
What this means for European soccer moving forward is certainly worth asking. If the leagues start their 2020-21 season a few weeks after crowning a European champion, the real offseason already happened. That would be the unplanned intermission in the midst of a global pandemic. Treating that as a break downplays the mental fatigue we all experienced trying to adjust to a new normal.
Inside a warehouse near the airport in Tampa, Fla., Nate Pearson reaches back, strides forward and releases. His surroundings are utilitarian, but the wood-framed mound simulates game conditions well enough and there’s ample netting nearby to keep baseballs from flying everywhere.
Roughly 2,100 kilometres due north, Dr. Mike Sonne watches on his iPhone as Pearson delivers – and he likes what he sees. It’s not just Pearson holding his attention, though the right-hander does move easily across the screen, with a balanced leg kick followed by a long stride that generates obvious power. It’s also the lines superimposed on the pitcher’s body that Sonne watches. They create a stick figure of sorts, one whose limbs turn from green to orange to red as Pearson delivers. In his role as VP of research and innovation for the baseball tech company ProPlayAI, Sonne has seen more of these animations than anyone. None of them move quite like one Pearson generates.