NEWS RELEASE For Immediate ReleaseContact: Jess Gomez(801) 408-2182
OLYMPIC ATHLETES STUDIED DURING 2002 OLYMPIC WINTER GAMES IN SALT LAKE CITY
SALT LAKE CITY - While Olympic competitors at the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Games are busy going for gold, a group of nine research teams will be busy trying to figure out how to improve athletes' performances at future competitions. For the scientists, Olympic athletes will serve as a large human lab for the duration of the Games in a unique opportunity to mix science and sport.
One of the teams studying these top-level athletes during the 2002 Olympic Winter Games is from Intermountain Health Care's (IHC) Orthopedic Specialty Hospital in Murray, Utah. The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital team is focusing its study on athletes and nutrition issues during preparation for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games, and is now awaiting results of the competitions to finalize its findings. The research is sponsored and funded directly by Pfizer Pharmaceutical and the International Olympic Committee's Congress for Sports Science and Medicine.
IHC and The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital are serving as the medical services provider for the Salt Lake 2002 Olympics. However, The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital does more than simply treat athlete's injuries. Researchers from The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital are conducting a number of research projects including studies looking at injury prevention and how athletes can increase their chances at winning a medal.
Nana Meyer, M.S., sports nutritionist researcher at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, along with Andy Subudhi, Ph.D., has spent the past six months collecting nutritional data related to winter sports athletes, including speedskaters, biathletes, snowboarders, freestyle aerialists, bobsledders, skeleton sliders and luge racers.
Meyer is pioneering research in this arena of winter sports athletes' nutrition by looking specifically at how issues such as hydration, iron levels, carbohydrates and calories, sports nutrition supplements, and training environments affect their on-snow and on-ice performances.
The Olympics provide the perfect opportunity to study the best athletes in the world at their peak performance levels," says Meyer. "Data collected under these conditions allows researchers to improve subsequent performances for all levels of competitors."
There is a gap in what we know about nutrition as it relates to winter sports and the athletes that compete in those sports, Meyer adds. "We hope to narrow that gap and help these athletes increase their chances for success."
"The purpose of the studies, especially this particular nutritional study, is to collect enough information to determine how to help the athletes improve," says Todd Allinger, Ph.D., biomechanist sports scientist at The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital and coordinator of the Pfizer/IOC Olympic Research Projects. "Our purpose is to improve performance, prevent injury and promote healthy lifestyles. Hopefully the findings from these studies will help us do those things."
"All of the components that go into winning an Olympic medal need to be researched and advanced," says Meyer. "With the results of this particular study (nutritional preparation) we hope to be able to create a nutrition manual for future winter sport athletes. We want to find out what the difference is between first and third in a particular event. Is it body positioning, equipment setup, nutritional variation, or hydration?"
Because researchers are not allowed to impede athletes performance or training, data is collected through questionnaires, video analysis, and previously compiled information, such as athletes' nutrition logs. This means monitoring every competitor at the events applicable to their study, organizing all of the information, along with the final results of the competitions, and reviewing, analyzing and applying their findings to ultimately help the athletes improve their future performance.
Researchers from the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe are participating in the studies. Research projects include studying the influence of clapskate hinge position on long-track speed skating performance, biomechanical analysis of double and triple twists in pairs figure skating, the biomechanical analysis of the takeoff, early- and mid-flight phases in ski jumping, and a scientific approach to address the problem of underweight athletes: a case study of ski jumping. The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital is also assisting the eight other research teams by providing a staff member to accompany each group, collect data and help with filming duties.
While some studies, such as Meyer's, are nearly complete, other research teams will spend the games taking and analyzing video tape of athletes. Their purpose? Find a way to make up that extra one-hundredth of a second that could mean gold at the next winter Olympics.
"It's imperative and extremely valuable that the information be gleaned during actual performance of the athlete," says Craig Wing, director of The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital. "This gives our athletes the benefit of evaluation of their performance in a game-time environment that is unlike any environment we could ever produce."
The Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, which is a designated United States Olympic Committee training center, has played an integral part in the conditioning, training and rehabilitation of many American Olympic athletes, including downhill ski racer Picabo Street, skeleton rider Triston Gate, and speedskater Chris Witty, among many others.
IHC is a charitable, community-owned, nonprofit health care organization based in Salt Lake City that serves the health needs of Utah and Idaho residents. The IHC system includes health insurance plans, hospitals, clinics, and affiliated physicians.
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