An Olympic and Paralympic year always brings elite sporting performance into sharp focus. In the dynamic landscape of sports science, the 2024 Paris Games are poised to highlight performance trends such as cutting-edge technology, personalised analytics, and holistic athlete well-being. The wide-scale adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning might have come too late to substantially influence outcomes in Paris, but its use will continue to revolutionise performance analysis, offering coaches and athletes unprecedented insights into strategic decision-making. 

Preparations for England’s first test in Pakistan have been hit by an outbreak of illness amongst the touring party. Talks are being held over the possibility of delaying the start of the series by a day as 14 members of the England team and staff have been affected.

Concussion and brain trauma are emotive subjects in sport. As research continues to uncover the impact that traumatic head injuries have, discussions about safety and the long term health of players will only get louder. In the USA, as early as 1906 doctors were publishing papers highlighting the dangers of concussion linked to playing American Football. In the UK, ongoing research that identifies a link between heading and dementia in football has drawn major attention.

British Athlete Dina Asher-Smith has called for more research into the effect of periods on female athletes. The 2019 World 200m champion made the statement following pulling up in the European Athletics Championship final because of cramping calves. She attributed the cramps to “girls stuff” linking the incident to her menstrual cycle.

The issue of concussion and head injury in sport continues to gain media attention. It is an area SSA has been involved with for a number of years. Our work has focused on football via Rezzil’s Player 22 VR heading system and rugby, American football and Australian rules via HITIQ.

The British & Irish Lions brings together the best players from four nations to create an All-Star team. Performance staff are also picked from across the home unions and meet up with the team only weeks before the tour begins.

This week saw a major step forward with Vodafone, as part of its partnership with the British & Irish Lions, unveiled its new PLAYER.Connect system. PLAYER.Connect takes advantage of Vodafone’s connectivity and Internet of Things (IoT) technology to allow the integration of multiple wearable data sources into one performance dashboard.

The 2020 Australian Open was the last tennis grand slam to be played without the major impact of Covid-19. The subsequent slams that year were either cancelled (Wimbledon), postponed (French Open) or suffered from major player withdrawals (US Open). As the top-flight tennis returns to Melbourne and the pandemic remains, it is not surprising that the movement of over 1,000 people associated with the Open into Australia has come with serious complications.

Rugby Restart has seen Gallagher Premiership and Guinness Pro 14 sides return to competition following their enforced stoppage due to Covid-19. The intense schedule implemented in order to finish the season has seen squads increase player rotation more frequently as they manage player loads recovery and injury. While player welfare measures have been put in place by World Rugby to reduce the risk associated with collisions, there is little to suggest that collision-induced muscle damage or injury is set to decrease. Players and clubs will therefore continue to seek optimised recovery strategies following matches and training.

Sport Science Agency discusses the Premier League drinks break and how brands can develop activation around this new, predictable and therefore plannable stoppage in play.

Following what he described as “the hardest match of my career” Andy Murray was unable to repeat the heroics of his 2020 US Open first-round victory. After an absence of over a year from the Grand Slam scene, a grinding five-set battle lasting over four hours was not what he or his performance team would have wanted. His second-round tie proved too much at this stage of his comeback as he lost in straight sets.

Project restart created an unprecedented interest from football media and fans into training, performance and the potential for injury that the return from lockdown has created. As we have mentioned in a number of previous blogs (It’s back, Recovery position, Project restart), Covid-19 presented staff with a number of unique challenges. There was no playbook for lockdown and the extended break it caused. There was no fixed return date to build conditioning towards, and there was no clear understanding of the fixture demands if/when competition was to return.