… Put all of that athleticism together and [Bobby] Stoupe firmly believes Story has what it takes to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in a season. How rare an accomplishment would that be? It’s only been done four times in major league history and it hasn’t happened since Alfonso Soriano hit 46 homers and stole 41 bases for the 2006 Washington Nationals.
“Trevor has some very unique physical characteristics that can make that possible for him,” Stoupe said. “His running velocity, acceleration and rotational strength are special. You combine that with his acumen in baseball, along with his mental and professional makeup, and 40-40 is a realistic goal for him.”
Giant Jenga might not be a typical recovery tool at most clubs, but at Brentford it is.
“We have a temporary structure that I call the biggest gazebo gym in the world and players have taken up two-touch, head tennis and stand-up Jenga in there,” explained Michael Caulfield, Brentford’s consultant psychologist, at TGG’s Recovery Webinar last month.
… Look on the NBA mock draft sites and no program — with the possible exception of Gonzaga — has as many names mentioned as Shaw’s Ignite squad. Green and Kuminga are projected as top-five picks, while [Daishen] Nix and [Isaiah] Todd figure to go a little later.
Todd was all prepared to go to Michigan before a change of heart. This is how much the Wolverines meant to him: He was pained when they were eliminated from the NCAA Tournament in the Elite Eight. He even sent coach Juwan Howard a consolatory text.
But the Ignite was just too enticing — a chance to jumpstart his pro education.
“Growing up, I always thought I had to go to college to go to the NBA,” Todd said. “Times are changing. There are different options and there are different pathways to take your dreams into action. Kids are starting to realize that.”
University of Colorado Boulder, Chemical and Biological Engineering from
… Do you see overlap between the challenges of being an engineer and competing as a Division I athlete?
Athletics is a microcosm of life in general, and the requirements for high-level performance in disparate activities are characterized by surprising parallels. Engineers and athletes both need to overcome challenges that require an individual to extract the best from themselves. However, the ability to creatively solve problems or win a race is not a spontaneous event. It is the result of many hours of diligent practice and numerous failed attempts along the way.
Additionally, personal success is always the result of productive collaboration behind the scenes. Although individuals have a responsibility to give their best, every final product is always a collaborative effort.
… Catapult sells its GPS-based performance tracking technology to some of the biggest sporting clubs in the world from English Premier League’s Chelsea to the NBA’s Boston Celtics, as well as the NRL and AFL locally.
A big part of its potential market lies with the massive college sports system in the US, according to Catapult.
“One of the slightly frustrating things for us is that Americans tend to understand what we’re doing better than Australians,” said Mr Shiffman.
The hardware or software that operates medical devices can be biased. A biased device is one that operates in a manner that disadvantages certain demographic groups and influences health inequity. As one measure of fairness, reducing bias is related to increasing fairness in the operation of a medical device. Initiatives to promote fairness are rapidly growing in a range of technical disciplines, but this growth is not rapid enough for medical engineering. Although computer science companies terminate lucrative but biased facial recognition systems, biased medical devices continue to be sold as commercial products. It is important to address bias in medical devices now. This can be achieved by studying where and how bias arises, and understanding these can inform mitigation strategies.
Bias in medical devices can be divided into three broad forms (see the figure). A medical device can exhibit physical bias, where physical principles are biased against certain demographics. Once data are collected, computational bias, which pertains to the distribution, processing, and computation of data that are used to operate a device, must be considered. Subsequent implementation in clinical settings can lead to interpretation bias, where clinical staff or other users may interpret device outputs differently based on demographics.
… Currently, testing labs analyze samples using tandem mass spectrometry (MS) and gas or liquid chromatography. These approaches break up molecules in the sample and separate the fragments, yielding spectra that can reveal the identity of the original, intact compounds. But it can be tough to differentiate molecules with minor structural differences — including isomers — that distinguish endogenous steroids from exogenous ones, such as the synthetic anabolic steroids athletes take to build muscle.
To accentuate those differences, [Christopher] Chouinard pairs MS with ion mobility (IM) spectrometry, a separation technique he learned as a graduate student with Richard Yost, Ph.D., at the University of Florida. Yost’s team and others found that the differences between isomers could be made even more apparent if the molecules in a sample were modified prior to IM-mass spec analysis by reacting them with other compounds. After Chouinard set up his own lab in 2018, he applied this technique by reacting steroid samples with ozone or acetone in the presence of ultraviolet light — reactions already well-established among researchers who study lipid isomers, but new in the anti-doping arena.
The Japan Times, Bloomberg, Lisa Du and Michelle Fay Cortez from
… “Based on the number of people arriving and the prevalence of the disease around the globe, the Olympics absolutely could become a superspreading event that leads to quite a number of infections, as well as spreading internationally as people return home,” said Spencer Fox, a research associate at the University of Texas, Austin, who specializes in infectious disease modeling. “The precautions they have in place are great, but you can never completely reduce the probability of infections.”
Major League Soccer announced on Monday that it will be among several U.S. leagues that will take part in a pilot program to implement concussion substitutions, starting with the 2021 regular season.
The protocols involved in the program have been approved by FIFA and the International Football Association Board (IFAB), which oversees possible changes to the Laws of the Game. The IFAB has set an initial 20-month trial period to test the concussion substitutes initiative in competitions around the world through Aug. 31, 2022.
It was the brother of a friend that first got Philip Woodbridge curious. Woodbridge, who is now a sports nutritionist at Buckinghamshire New University in the U.K., was looking to make more of a lifestyle change, and heard that his friend’s brother — an elite soccer player in England — had gone vegan and gotten into body building.
Woodbridge didn’t think the diet was for him, but he wanted to know how going animal product-free was panning out for the growing number of athletes making the switch. And as runners, bodybuilders, cyclists and more take off with vegan diets, researchers are trying to keep pace and figure out if or how dropping meat, dairy and eggs might change performance. So far, the evidence says: It’s a draw. “If a vegan diet can be managed appropriately, there’s probably minimal impact it could have,” says David Rogerson, a sports nutrition and strength and conditioning lecturer at Sheffield Hallam University. “Really the impact comes when the vegan diet isn’t managed appropriately.”
Football is a global game which is constantly evolving, showing substantial increases in physical and technical demands. Nutrition plays a valuable integrated role in optimising performance of elite players during training and match-play, and maintaining their overall health throughout the season. An evidence-based approach to nutrition emphasising, a ‘food first’ philosophy (ie, food over supplements), is fundamental to ensure effective player support. This requires relevant scientific evidence to be applied according to the constraints of what is practical and feasible in the football setting. The science underpinning sports nutrition is evolving fast, and practitioners must be alert to new developments. In response to these developments, the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) has gathered experts in applied sports nutrition research as well as practitioners working with elite football clubs and national associations/federations to issue an expert statement on a range of topics relevant to elite football nutrition: (1) match day nutrition, (2) training day nutrition, (3) body composition, (4) stressful environments and travel, (5) cultural diversity and dietary considerations, (6) dietary supplements, (7) rehabilitation, (8) referees and (9) junior high-level players. The expert group provide a narrative synthesis of the scientific background relating to these topics based on their knowledge and experience of the scientific research literature, as well as practical experience of applying knowledge within an elite sports setting. Our intention is to provide readers with content to help drive their own practical recommendations. In addition, to provide guidance to applied researchers where to focus future efforts. [full text]
Back in January, two Democratic senators introduced federal legislation called the College Athlete Bill of Rights.
Among a long list of reforms, there was one item that jumped out as a potential game-changer to college sports: Schools would be required to share 50% of their profit with athletes from revenue-generating sports after accounting for cost of scholarships.
“How does that even work?” Boston College athletic director Patrick Kraft asked.
In an Associated Press survey sent to 357 Division I athletic directors, 69% of respondents said they would strongly oppose “being required to give college athletes a share of university revenue derived from sports.” Another 19.6% said they somewhat oppose sharing athletic department revenue with athletes.
As March Madness heads into its final days, college athletes are playing on a different kind of court: the Supreme Court. On Wednesday the justices heard arguments in a case testing whether the NCAA’s limits on compensation for student athletes violate the nation’s antitrust laws.
The players contend that the NCAA is operating a system that is a classic restraint of competition in violation of the federal laws barring price fixing in markets, including the labor market.
There is little doubt that big-time college sports is a big business. For March Madness TV rights alone, the NCAA is paid $1.1 billion each year. But the NCAA maintains that the antitrust law allows it to impose certain limits on athlete compensation in order to preserve what the NCAA contends is the essence of college sports’ popularity: namely amateurism.
College football and men’s basketball players generate millions of dollars of revenue for their universities and athletic conferences from TV contracts, ticket revenue, and merchandise sales. The athletes have been fighting for a share of all that money, disputing rules imposed by the National Collegiate Athletic Association that bar them from any compensation beyond academic scholarships and modest living expenses.
That money, instead of going to the players, is benefiting others in the university community, according to Northwestern’s Craig Garthwaite, University of Michigan PhD student Jordan Keener, Chicago Booth’s Matthew Notowidigdo, and Northwestern PhD student Nicole F. Ozminkowski. They find the revenue from football and men’s basketball subsidizes other sports, and leads to higher spending on coaching salaries (not just in football) and facilities.