PARIS –
Athletes competing in the newly introduced Olympic sports of BMX freestyle,
karate and skateboarding suffered some of the highest rates of injuries at the
Tokyo Games, new research showed Wednesday.
The
three new events were among the top five with the most injuries at the 2020
Summer Olympics, which was held in 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Boxing
and BMX racing had the highest rates, with 27 percent of competitors getting
injured, according to a study carried out by researchers from the International
Olympic Committee (IOC).
Next
came the new events of BMX freestyle, which had 22 percent of its athletes
injured, followed by skateboarding with 21 percent and karate with 19 percent,
said the study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Other
new events had fewer injuries, including sport climbing with a rate of 15
percent, surfing with 13 percent and 3×3 basketball with 11 percent.
The
study’s lead author Torbjorn Soligard, who works in the IOC’s medical and
scientific department, told AFP “it is important to note that more than half
the injuries recorded did not lead to any time lost from competition”.
More
than 11,300 athletes from 206 national teams were monitored in Tokyo, with more
than a thousand injuries recorded.
Overall,
nine percent of athletes in Tokyo suffered an injury, comparable to eight
percent at the 2016 Rio Games, 11 percent at the 2012 London Olympics and 10
percent in Beijing.
Tokyo
saw the lowest rate of sickness ever recorded at an Olympics –- it was
conducted under strict Covid-19 restrictions – with 3.9 illnesses per 100
athletes, compared to 5.4 in Rio and 7.2 in London.
“This
might largely be attributed to the extensive countermeasures put in place to
mitigate Covid-19, effectively reducing transmission of Covid-19 and all
respiratory infections,” the study’s authors said.
Less
than 0.2 percent of the athletes caught Covid.
Newly
introduced sports were also among the most injury prone at the Tokyo
Paralympics, with taekwondo and badminton among the top four with the highest
rates, according to a parallel study.
Eight percent of Paralympians were injured
in Tokyo, a drop from the 12 percent recorded at both the Rio and London Games
in the past. AFP
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