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Sports Injury and Illness Epidemiology: Great Britain Olympic Team (TeamGB) surveillance during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games

Palmer-Green, Debbie; Elliott, Niall

Authors

Debbie Palmer-Green

Niall Elliott



Abstract

Background: Sports injury and illness surveillance is the first step in injury and illness prevention, and is important for the protection of both athlete health and performance in major competitions.

Aim: To identify the prevalence, severity nature and causes of athlete injuries and illnesses in the Great Britain Olympic Team (TeamGB) during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Methods: The observational prospective cohort study followed the Great Britain Injury/Illness Performance Project surveillance methodology and obtained information on injuries and illnesses that occurred during the Games between 30 January and 23 February 2014 in TeamGB athletes (n=56).

Results: Among the 56 TeamGB athletes, there were 27 injuries and 11 illnesses during the Olympic Games period. This equated to 39% sustaining at least one injury and 18% at least one illness, with an incidence of 48.2 injuries and 19.6 illnesses per 100 athletes, respectively. Of all injuries and illnesses, 9% and 7%, respectively, resulted in time loss. The risk of sustaining an injury was highest for freestyle skiing, skeleton and snowboarding; and lowest for curling, biathlon and Alpine skiing (with no reported injuries); with the lower limb being the most commonly injured location. Respiratory system illnesses were most frequently reported overall, and older female athletes were the ones most affected by illness.

Conclusions: The risk of injury was double the risk of illness for TeamGB athletes. Overall, the rate of time-loss issues was low. Methodological considerations are important when interpreting data, and prevention strategies should focus on those issues causing the greatest risk, in terms of prevalence and severity, to athlete health and performance.

Citation

Palmer-Green, D., & Elliott, N. (2015). Sports Injury and Illness Epidemiology: Great Britain Olympic Team (TeamGB) surveillance during the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 49, 25-29. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2014-094206

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Oct 26, 2014
Online Publication Date Nov 25, 2014
Publication Date 2015-01
Deposit Date Jan 20, 2016
Publicly Available Date Jan 20, 2016
Print ISSN 0306-3674
Electronic ISSN 1473-0480
Publisher BMJ Publishing Group
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 49
Pages 25-29
DOI https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2014-094206
Keywords Injury, trauma, epidemiology
Public URL http://researchrepository.napier.ac.uk/id/eprint/9460
Contract Date Jan 20, 2016

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Publisher Licence URL
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

Copyright Statement
This is an Open Access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/






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