The Dutch forward might be one of the most modest players in women’s football, but her second place in Goal 50 2020 shows she’s a genuine star
It’s good that Vivianne Miedema is fantastic at football. If she wasn’t, she’d be “a big disappointment”, she laughs, finishing Goal’s sentence in an exclusive interview that celebrates her place at No.2 in this year’s Goal 50.
Wayne Rooney finds himself in a new position, in more ways than one. Derby County are bottom of the Championship, the lowest place Rooney has ever found himself in the league standings. He is interim charge, along with Liam Rosenior, perhaps the start of a managerial career many envisaged when he became player-coach at Pride Park.
If the spectre of Rooney loomed over Phillip Cocu throughout his tenure – news of the former England captain’s impending move broke just before the Dutchman’s first game – his profile means the sacked manager is immediately overshadowed.
And yet perhaps he should not be. There is a common denominator in the playing days of Cocu and Rooney, men with a century of caps and a host of medals apiece: Louis van Gaal. And while Rooney’s time playing for Van Gaal is rather more recent, Cocu’s departure may mark the end of Van Gaalism in English football.
… The practical result for us is that, even with all our experience informing us that we’ll enjoy the run, we need to present our minds with even more compelling and immediate reason to overcome our instinct to be a couch potato and conserve energy until we have to use it. Fortunately, running’s side effects are significant and motivating: from reducing aging to improving immunity, looking good to thinking better. If we can’t see through to the enjoyment of effort, we can use running’s abundant side effects to get us past the point of resistance to where the run takes over.
While those benefits may get us moving, however, the ills they prevent and characteristics they improve tend to be long term — and the running they require less than what we’ve found optimal. Many of us find even more motivation in chasing goals: there’s nothing like a looming marathon to get me out doing daily miles, long runs, speed workouts and strength work. And inevitably, while the marathon scares and motivates me enough to do this training, I enjoy every aspect of it, and the training is what ends up important and worthwhile no matter what happens in the race.
Objectives The menstrual cycle can affect sports participation and exercise performance. There are very few data on specific menstrual cycle symptoms (symptoms during various phases of the cycle, not only during menstruation) experienced by exercising women. We aimed to characterise the most common symptoms, as well as the number and frequency of symptoms, and evaluate whether menstrual cycle symptoms are associated with sporting outcomes.
Methods 6812 adult women of reproductive age (mean age: 38.3 (8.7) years) who were not using combined hormonal contraception were recruited via the Strava exercise app user database and completed a 39-part survey. Respondents were from seven geographical areas, and the questions were translated and localised to each region (Brazil, n=892; France, n=1355; Germany, n=839; Spain, n=834; UK and Ireland, n=1350; and USA, n=1542). The survey captured exercise behaviours, current menstrual status, presence and frequency of menstrual cycle symptoms, medication use for symptoms, perceived effects of the menstrual cycle on exercise and work behaviours, and history of hormonal contraception use. We propose a novel Menstrual Symptom index (MSi) based on the presence and frequency of 18 commonly reported symptoms (range 0–54, where 54 would correspond to all 18 symptoms each occurring very frequently).
Results The most prevalent menstrual cycle symptoms were mood changes/anxiety (90.6%), tiredness/fatigue (86.2%), stomach cramps (84.2%) and breast pain/tenderness (83.1%). After controlling for body mass index, training volume and age, the MSi was associated with a greater likelihood of missing or changing training (OR=1.09 (CI 1.08 to 1.10); p≤0.05), missing a sporting event/competition (OR=1.07 (CI 1.06 to 1.08); p≤0.05), absenteeism from work/academia (OR=1.08 (CI 1.07 to 1.09); p≤0.05) and use of pain medication (OR=1.09 (CI 1.08 to 1.09); p≤0.05).
Conclusion Menstrual cycle symptoms are very common in exercising women, and women report that these symptoms compromise their exercise participation and work capacity. The MSi needs to be formally validated (psychometrics); at present, it provides an easy way to quantify the frequency of menstrual cycle symptoms.
For a training organization, monitoring training load (TL) is of paramount importance. Despite this, a conclusive response on such topic is yet to be reported. The aims of this study were to investigate the relationship between TL indicators and to propose a new method for monitoring TL response and physical fitness. Twenty professional soccer players were retrospectively evaluated. The first phase of data analysis included 34 in-season training sessions. Subsequently, three microcycles (T1-T2-T3) of pre-season training were processed. A regression model was used to examine the relationships between internal TL (session rating of perceived exertion [s-RPE]) and external TL (energy expenditure, EE). The standard error of the regression equation was used to propose a new model called “ROMEI” (Relation of Ongoing Monitored Exercise in Individual). The level of statistical significance was set at p < 0.05. During the competitive season and the pre-season training camp, the average TL values were 65.8 ± 22 and 58.2 ± 22 minutes; 336 ± 204 and 228 ± 101 AU of s-RPE; and 29 ± 13 and 25 ± 9 kJ kJ−1 of EE, respectively. In the competitive season, the collective and average individual correlation coefficients between s-RPE and EE were r = 0.888 and r = 0.892 ± 0.05, respectively. Considering slope values (m) of the regression line, data highlighted a significant increase of +34.4 ± 15.9% in T2 vs. T3 (p < 0.001) and +38.2 ± 15.2% in T1 vs. T3 (p < 0.001). Data shown in this investigation support the use of an individualized analysis to better understand the TL administered to soccer players rather than a collective analysis. This may be accomplished with the proposed ROMEI model.
“This collaborative, week-long hackathon offers a unique opportunity for participants to work with Rogers’ groundbreaking, low latency 5G technology. Using real on-ice tracking data from NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs games, participants will devise innovative ways to increase audience engagement and enhance the fan experience for Sportsnet viewers.” Deadline to apply is November 21.
FIFA is working with technology firms to develop better visuals of offside lines and improve decision making by referees, the soccer body said Tuesday.
FIFA provided an update on its innovation panel’s work to also study semi-automated offside calls that can help match officials and develop cheaper video review systems for less wealthy competition organizers.
A priority for the panel is “improvement of the visualisation of close offside incidents,” FIFA said.
Yale University, Yale Daily News student newspaper, Rehan Melwani from
As college students, Yale’s student-athletes often sacrifice precious hours of sleep by either staying up late to study or waking up early to train. To maximize their rest, some students have turned to Whoop — a sports band designed to track fitness levels throughout the day and alert users of their inefficient habits.
Founded in 2012 by Will Ahmed, a former Harvard squash captain, Whoop has changed the way athletes navigate their daily lives. Unlike the Apple Watch, which acts as a miniature wearable tablet, the Whoop Strap is minimalist — a strap with a sensor. However, the data it collects is complex, providing users with valuable information about their bodies. Those who subscribe can monitor how much they are straining their bodies and whether or not they are getting enough rest. In this way, the Whoop Strap has helped some Yale athletes realize that ample recovery time is just as important as physical exertion.
Harrison Gill ’22 is currently taking time off from Yale to work on the Data Science team at Whoop. As the captain of the Yale men’s squash team, Gill is no stranger to the fast-paced lifestyle that comes with athletic commitments. He believes that Whoop’s technology helps athletes better manage themselves, preventing injuries while maximizing performance.
AliveCor, a maker of artificial intelligence-enabled personal ECG devices, has announced its Series E financing round worth $65 million. The round was led by existing investors OMRON, Khosla Ventures, WP Global Partners, Qualcomm Ventures and Bold Capital Partners.
The capital will be used to enhance the growth of AliveCor’s remote-cardiology platform by adding telehealth, detection and condition-management services for providers and healthcare institutions. It is also entering into a partnership with OMRON, which will add hypertension management to its portfolio.
The 2020-21 Premier League season is just over two months old. For those players expecting to play for their countries at the delayed Euro 2020 or Copa America next summer, there are another eight months of football across multiple competitions to get through before “the end” in mid-July.
In June, ESPN spoke to sports scientist Dr. Tom Little about the challenges that faced the top players this season. He warned of an “incredibly difficult” year ahead, both mentally and physically, due to the increased workload caused by a fixture list truncated by the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. Dr. Little’s forecast has proved worryingly correct, and he can only see more problems ahead.
“It’s a difficult time, but what do you do?” said Dr. Little, who has worked with Manchester City and Burnley. “Do you not have the European Championship at the end of this season? Nobody wants that, so it is going to be the same all season long. And every player that goes into the Euros is going to have a pretty risky profile in terms of fitness and fatigue.”
In a bid to have players on international duty return in time for the MLS Cup playoffs, the league is taking the unusual step of using charter flights to speed their return to the U.S. and thus avoid quarantine periods, sources have told ESPN.
This move will allow these players to be fully available for the playoffs.
… “If the ball has too high of a pressure, gets too waterlogged, or both, it actually turns into a weapon. Heading that ball is like heading a brick,” says Eric Nauman, professor of mechanical engineering and basic medical sciences with a courtesy appointment in biomedical engineering at Purdue University.
… For two decades, Scotland have contrived to be a combination of underachievers, unlucky and unworthy successors to their past selves. Even when managers like Alex McLeish, in his first reign, and Walter Smith did excellent jobs, it was not quite enough. They alternated between play-off defeats and earlier exits, near-misses and embarrassments. A nation that churned out disproportionate amounts of talent – remember Alex Ferguson omitting Liverpool’s Double-winning captain Alan Hansen from the 1986 squad? – has felt starved of it at times. Too often they have had too few goalscorers. Ability has been unevenly distributed around the team, a problem Clarke faces when arguably his two best players, Andrew Robertson and Kieran Tierney, are both left-backs.
Not hearing your name called on draft night isn’t a death knell anymore. As Alex Caruso and Duncan Robinson showed in the Finals, teams are finding value after the draft more than ever before.
… You’re going to hear all kinds of comparisons of prospects to current players in the lead-up to Wednesday’s 2020 NBA Draft, so it’s worth asking: What were scouts saying about Curry, Thompson and Green? We examined their pre-draft scouting reports on NBADraft.net to see their pro comparisons and how they’ve performed against those expectations.
Mind you, this isn’t intended to dunk on one of the best resources for draft analysis out there, or add another piece to the lexicon praising the Warriors’ draft savvy. Ahead of Golden State making a potentially franchise-altering decision Wednesday, this all goes to show just how much guesswork is involved.