Author Archives: Caroline Heaney

Wimbledon is here – finally the summer of sport begins

By Simon Rea

This summer in the absence of an Olympics Games or major men’s football tournament sports fans are relying on events such as the women’s Football World Cup, the first European Games in Baku and the ICC women’s championships for entertainment.  From Monday 29th June this will be supplemented by two weeks of Wimbledon fever and a supply of tennis from lunchtime to bedtime.  The British tennis fans will be asking whether all our hopes of glory rest with Andy Murray or can any other British players have a good run in the tournament.

TennisBallNetSky

Image courtesy of PinkBlue at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Who will win?

The men’s singles and women’s singles could not be more different at the moment in terms of predictability.  If asked most people would answer that one of four, possibly five, men will win the men’s title while it seems that anyone could win the women’s title.

Women’s tournament

Serena Williams is once again the favourite for the women’s title and has been in spectacular form winning the last 3 major tournaments.  Most recently she won the French Open on her less favoured surface of clay but she hasn’t won Wimbledon since 2012.  Is she overdue to win or is her time at Wimbledon over?  If not Serena then two time winner and defending champion Petra Kvitova must be a favourite to succeed or Maria Sharapova, who has not won since 2004. These three stars of the game are joined in the top 5 by Simona Halep of Romania and Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark, both of whom have appeared in Grand Slam finals. Personally, I think this may be the year for Wozniacki who has underperformed at Wimbledon but in the last two years her performances have steadily improved and she has gained the consistency needed for success.

Men’s tournament

Novak Djokovic is favourite for the men’s title just ahead of Andy Murray.  They recently shared an epic semi-final on clay at the French Open that Djokovic just won before he was beaten in the final by Stanislas Wawrinka.  We are living through probably the toughest era in men’s tennis where four men, Djokovic, Federer, Nadal and Murray, have been competing for the major titles.  There has often been a rivalry between two players but never have we had four of the best players ever to play the game competing in the same era.  This has meant that each man has had to raise their game and work on every weakness to remain competitive

I think that this year may be Andy Murray’s year to win a second title.  Firstly, he came very close to beating Djokovic after producing incredible tennis to drag himself back from two sets down. Djokovic is probably his closest rival at the moment and grass courts represent Murray’s favourite surface.  He recently replicated his form of 2013, when he previously won Wimbledon, at the Aegon Championships to win the tournament convincingly.  His form has been up and down over the last two years but he finally seems fit and strong after his back surgery towards the end of 2013.  Murray needs to ensure that he doesn’t lets his opponent back into the match during the second set after he has won the first.  If he can show his ruthless streak he would be very well placed to succeed this year.

Are there any other British players to watch out for?

Heather Watson and Laura Robson are now well established on the tennis circuit but Robson has only recently overcome a wrist injury that had kept her side-lined for 17 months.  Watson is joined in the top three British women by Naomi Broady and a relative newcomer, Johanna Konta.  Konta is Australian born and has never got beyond the first round at Wimbledon, however, she performed impressively at the pre-Wimbledon Aegon tournament in Eastbourne where she knocked out 2 top-20 players so she is definitely one to watch.

British men’s tennis has a new number two in the shape of Aljaz Bedene who is ranked 74 in the world and has held a British passport since March, having moved to Britain from Slovenia seven years ago to develop his tennis career.  It is the first time since the days of Henman and Rusedski that Britain has had two men in the world’s top 100. He has never won a grand slam match but is one to watch to see how he responds to the fervent support of the British public.

This summer may be quieter than others but hopefully along with the England women’s football team and England cricket teams there will be plenty of success to savour.

Preparing for Penalty Shootout Pressure at the Women’s World Cup

By Caroline Heaney

With the Women’s Football World Cup now into the knockout stages football fans will be preparing themselves for the prospect of a penalty shoot-out or two. Penalty shoot-outs are rarely missing from a major tournament and in fact the last Women’s World Cup was won by Japan on penalties.

England fans have a love-hate relationship with the penalty shoot-out. The excitement of a penalty shoot-out is unquestionable, but England teams are not renowned for their success in penalty shoot-outs. The men’s team have had several exits from major tournaments at the hands of a penalty shoot-out (e.g. 2006 World Cup, Euro 2012) and the women’s team exited the 2011 World Cup after losing to France on penalties in the quarter final stages. So what is it about the penalty shoot-out that makes it so intense?

The penalty shoot-out in a major tournament is probably one the most highly pressured situations in football; the stakes are high and the margins for error are small. Additionally, the personal accountability of individual players is probably higher than in any other situation in football, where normally responsibility is collectively shared. No-one wants to be the player responsible for their team exiting a major tournament, and history shows that unsuccessful penalty takers are often ‘scapegoated’ and ostracised by their national media. Interestingly it appears to be the penalty takers rather than the goal-keepers who tend to fall victim to this negative media attention, perhaps due to the expectations of a penalty shoot-out: penalty takers are expected to score and goal-keepers are expected not to stop them. Obviously when a goal-keeper makes a winning save they become a hero in the eyes of the media, but rarely are they subjected to the same media condemnation as a player who misses a penalty when they fail to save a penalty.

As a result of this teams often focus a significant amount of effort on preparing for the possibility of a penalty shoot-out, and the England women’s team have been reported to be doing just that. Psychology is certainly a significant factor in the penalty shoot-out. As a sport psychologist I like to watch a player prepare to take a penalty and predict whether they will be successful – there are certain psychological cues that are indicative of the outcome. Researchers have investigated these and have identified various factors that can influence the success of the penalty shoot-out. Some of these are explored in our penalty shoot-out game:

Penalty Shootout Game

Click here to play our penalty shoot-out game

As with most tasks, confidence is key. A player who is confident and believes that they will score is more likely to do so. There is no room for doubt in a penalty shoot-out. Confidence can be seen through visual cues such as eye contact. A player who lacks confidence may avoid making eye contact with the goal keeper. Good goal keepers recognise these signals and will draw strength from an opponent who won’t make eye contact. Additionally, a successful penalty taker will normally take their time and not rush. Rushing can be seen as a sign of panic, whereas someone who waits is giving themselves time to compose themselves before executing the skill, perhaps utilising psychological techniques like imagery and positive self-talk before taking the penalty kick. A player may use imagery to rehearse taking a successful penalty in their head before taking it and may use positive self-talk to enhance their confidence and focus.

Experience is obviously an important factor for penalty takers. Players who have previously successfully taken penalties and won penalty shoot-outs are more likely to be confident in their ability to take a successful penalty. The reverse of that however is that those who have had bad experiences are less likely to be confident, which goes some way to explaining the serial penalty shoot-out defeats seen in teams such as the England and Holland men’s teams – the culture of expecting to lose a penalty shoot-out perpetuates. Research by Jordet revealed  that success rates in penalty shoot-outs are considerably higher for teams who have won their last two penalty shoot-outs compared to those who have lost their last two shoot-outs (89% versus 57%), even if the team membership is changed. Interestingly ‘higher status’ players, whilst likely having more experience to draw on, are sometimes less successful in penalty shoot-out situations; perhaps because the pressure of expectation is far greater for them than for players of lower status.

This shows that the successful penalty taker is one who is highly confident and copes well with pressure. Next time you watch a penalty shoot-out, watch the players prepare and see if you can predict whether or not they will be successful.

 

Gains for women at European Games eclipsed by Azerbaijan’s appalling human rights record

By Helen Owton

With the Women’s Football World Cup kicking off this month and the recent Women in Sports week, the first European Games in Baku, Azerbaijan could have been another opportunity for women’s sporting success to be celebrated. But Azerbaijan’s atrocious record on human rights, and the ban on certain journalists from covering the event have meant any gains made by female athletes are close to meaningless. The billions spent on staging these games will be wasted – hardly anyone will be able to watch because of the tight media regulations; new rules make it possible for lawsuits to be brought against journalists whose work opposes national interest or “insults the honour of the state and the dignity of the Azerbaijan people”. So unlike the Women’s World Cup in Canada, in Baku few will see the great strides forward for women’s sport.

Out of sight, not out of action

So what have we missed? For a start, the European Games could have been a watershed moment for women’s boxing. Boxing, the archetypal male pursuit of controlled violence, has always been a tough arena for women. Often, they have to prove themselves over and above the levels of men to be accepted, not to mention facing multiple forms of discrimination and harassment. Women challenge existing gender norms by crossing gender boundaries and while the inclusion of women’s boxing at Baku and in the 2012 London Olympics (after and absence of 116 years) was a sign of progress, there is still much more work to be done. How many people have watched women’s boxing since the Olympics? Team GB star Nicola Adams became a household name in 2012 but coverage of her and other women boxers has been largely absent since then. London 2012 was called the “year of the woman”, but it increasingly seems to have been an exception rather than a norm.

Household name: Nicola Adams. Dennis M. Sabangan

Despite the lack of coverage, the GB women’s boxing squad is still fighting strong and achieving. Recent success came at the European Championships in Romania. The team returned with two medals. Natasha Jonas, who competed at London 2012 and the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, won silver in the light-welterweight together with Stacey Copeland who also secured a silver medal in the welterweight final. Nicola Adams is a positive role model and an inspiring leader, so it is no surprise that she carried the flag for Team GB at the opening ceremony in Baku. She’s just won her opening round fight at Baku and is on course to make more boxing history. Nonetheless, she argues for more female role models given that many of her role models were men. This includes the need for more women in leadership roles in boxing. Meanwhile, today’s women boxers join the likes of other pioneering women boxers, Barbara Buttrick, Jane Couch, Cathy “The Bitch” Brown who could continue to inspire, but only if we hear about it.

Dodging human rights issues

And it’s very hard to inspire at an event so mired by controversy. While some argue that sport and politics should remain separate, sport does provide an opportunity to be an agent of social change and has been promoted as a force of good in the world. It would be naïve not to recognise how closely tied sport and politics are despite European Olympic Committee Chief Patrick Hickey insisting that sports remains divorced from politics. Sport presents us with an opportunity to demand change. In the early 1970s, ping-pong diplomacy was used to open up new diplomatic channels between the US and China. Nelson Mandela saw sport as a way to connect a nation; in 1995 he used the Rugby World Cup victory to symbolise the future unity of South Africa. But there are stories from the other side too. In 2008, the Beijing Olympics was a powerful example of human rights being ignored and the interconnections between Olympism, global sport and geopolitics. Similarly, the potential for transformation in Baku has been marginalised in favour of economic and corporate aims. Given this context and the bans on journalists entering the country, using the European Games as an opportunity for women to be seen as role models in sport could prove challenging and contentious. Nonetheless, these games do appear to have brought human rights issues into the limelight and the UN rights office is making attempts to get the Azerbaijan government to ensure freedom of expression assembly and association and fight for the release of jailed human rights defenders. If anything, the European Games in Baku are a reminder that the fight for women’s representation is a human rights issue. We cannot celebrate the gains made by women in male-dominated arenas as long as they take place in a country that does not support equality for all. The Conversation Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Women’s World Cup preview: what you need to know

By Helen Owton

The women participating in the FIFA World Cup in Canada are achieving against adversity. They are taking the field amid allegations of FIFA corruption, its president Sepp Blatter’s resignation, controversy over artificial turf, sexist videogame backlash and gender testing.

With 24 teams competing over a full month, it’s the largest and longest tournament in the history of women’s football. In the UK, all 52 matches will be given full coverage across the BBC for the first time. Indeed, this World Cup could rival the men’s tournament so let’s find out a bit more about what else we might expect.

 

England’s vital statistics

England is at number six in FIFA’s world rankings after qualifying first in the team’s group for the World Cup with a 100% record. The team had a tough friendly with Germany at Wembley who beat England 3-0 in November 2014.

More recently, after arriving in Canada for the Women’s World Cup, England played a friendly against Canada, losing 1-0 despite some strong performances from the team.

England reached the quarter-finals of the cup in 1995, 2007, 2011. This time there is a blend of experience and new talent and the team will be looking to improve progress at this tournament with their new head coach, Mark Sampson.

Playing technical

The artificial turf controversy has clearly highlighted how differently women are treated compared to men – men play on grass in the World Cup, but the women’s teams will play on a range of different artificial surfaces in Canada.

How will this affect the game? Apart from the increased risk of ankle injuries and the heat stress-related health problems from the potential high surface temperature, the women are likely to change their game to adapt to the turf.

The ball moves at a greater speed and players have less control as it rolls out of bounds more frequently. Put simply, it is physically more demanding than playing on natural grass. So there are likely to be more short and midfield-to-midfield passes to control the ball better.

Teams that might already hold the advantage of playing on such surfaces include Japan, which beat the USA on penalties in an nail-biting final at the 2011 competition in Germany. Japan’s style of play is technical; players maintain possession and their passes are short. Whereas USA (winners in 1991, 1999) and Canada, which both have an attacking style of play, might be affected most by the surface.

What’s new?

Eight teams are enjoying their debut at this year’s World Cup: Thailand, Switzerland, Spain, Cameroon, Costa Rica, Ivory Coast, Netherlands and Ecuador. This could lead to some high-scoring games, new plot lines and who knows what could happen in the games being played on a different surface?

Who qualified, who
didn’t.
Bullshark44

Due to the increased number of teams, the format of the tournament has changed slightly. There will two more groups (six groups of four) and a second knockout round. In total 52 matches will be played and it will take seven successful games to win the tournament.

Players to watch

With the new teams, there are going to be a lot of new players to watch out for together with the existing talent, such as the well-known Marta Vieira da Silva from Brazil (who is the best player in the history of the game and FIFA World Player of the Year five times), and Abby Wambach from the USA (who is also among the best in the world and was awarded FIFA World Player of the Year in 2012). Wambach has scored more goals than any international player in either men’s or women’s football.

Fara Williams in action.
Friso Gentsch

In the England women’s team, along with Eniola Aluko’s speed and Fara Williams’s tough experience, there is rising star Fran Kirby who has natural ability and intuitive talent on the pitch. She is top scorer for the domestic side, Reading. She grabbed the heart of the nation when she spoke honestly about her struggle to come to terms with bereavement, her battle against depression and her fierce return to Reading, scoring 33 goals in her first season back. She is a talented footballer as well as a huge inspiration to others at such a young age.

 

At 21, Kirby is not the youngest player in the tournament, however. Vivianne Miedema, 19, from the Netherlands is another rising star and one to watch. She was a key player in helping the national team qualify for the first FIFA Women’s World Cup.

What I love about these women is their ability to push boundaries outside their footballing careers by tackling homophobia (Casey Stoney), standing up against gender discrimination (Wambach leading a discrimination lawsuit against FIFA over the artificial turf), and inspiring other women into football.

The first game kicks off on Saturday June 6 with Canada playing China; let’s cheer them all on with admiration and the respect they deserve.

The Conversation

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Women’s World Cup primes for kick-off a mind corruption allegations at FIFA

By Helen Owton

With the breaking news of allegations of corruption at FIFA, everybody seems to be talking about what impact it will have on the upcoming World Cups in Russia and Qatar.

But the next World Cup isn’t in Russia or Qatar, it’s in Canada. The FIFA Women’s World Cup kicks off on June 6 and the complete lack of discussion of how the crisis at the top of football will affect the competition further trivialises the women’s game. Corruption needs to be eliminated from FIFA, and we must remember in doing so that the organisation is not just responsible for the men’s game, but for women’s football too.

It’s worth noting that while FIFA been accused of receiving bribes totalling US$150m, the body has been simultaneously starving the women’s game of funding and investment.

Achieving against the odds

The seventh women’s World Cup takes place in the same year FIFA celebrates its 111th birthday, although I doubt there will be much celebrating going on in light of the recent arrests. It’s actually quite surprising to realise that the first men’s World Cup was staged in 1930, which means that in 85 years there have been just seven women’s competitions.

This is perhaps no surprise, given that in 1921, Britain’s Football Association banned women’s football altogether “in light of complaints made” about the problems they could experience as a result of playing.

In this century, FIFA has shown its blasé attitude towards women footballers by making them play on artificial turf for all their World Cup games, despite the face that no one would dream of making male players do the same. As US footballer Megan Rapinoe has argued:

FIFA made a $338m profit on the 2014 Men’s World Cup. To say that it’s not logistically possible to install real grass at all the stadiums is not acceptable.

There is no doubt that this will have an impact on the the games played, which could play into pre-established prejudices against the quality of women’s football. How are women supposed to prove that they can play just as well as the men (if not better) if it’s literally not a level playing field?

Winnipeg stadium: not-so-hallowed turf.
Krazytea, CC BY-SA

Despite all this, members of the English women’s team certainly seems to be campaigning successfully to receive the attention they deserve. It’s also encouraging that the Canadian Soccer Association and Canada’s sports minister have already responded to the allegations made against FIFA and are making attempts to prevent this news negatively affecting the Women’s World Cup. Indeed, Canada is a world leader in the promotion and protection of women’s rights and gender equality.

Women’s football is still an arena that highlights women’s quest for equality. As the UN says, “human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights”. That applies as much on the football field as is does anywhere else.

Once again, women are forced to achieve against adversity to prove to the world that they can achieve success no matter what barriers – be they artificial turf, a breaking news story about corruption, lack of investment or negative public perception – are imposed on them.

The Conversation

Helen Owton is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University.

This article was originally published on The Conversation.
Read the original article.

Join our team!


We currently have a vacancy for a full-time lecturer in Sport and Fitness (based in Milton Keynes) to join our growing and vibrant team of six staff involved in updating materials, overseeing teaching activities and active research that connects with our BSc (Hons) Sport, Fitness and Coaching.

If you have an excellent knowledge of sport and exercise science or sports studies, good experience of working in higher education and a strong research profile you can find out more about the post through the link below.

Lecturer in Sport and Fitness – Further information

Closing date: Monday 11th May 2015

Review of 2014

As we enter the new year we thought it would be nice to reflect back on 2014, which was a pretty busy year for the Open University Sport and Fitness Team. Here are just some of our highlights and special moments from 2014.

We now look forward to an even more amazing 2015!

Happy New Year from the Central Academic Team for Sport and Fitness
(Caroline, Simon, Jess, Candice and Gavin)

Learning is moving onto social networks



Education can be dramatically enhanced by social networks, a report from The Open University claims. Massive open social learning brings the power of social networks to people taking online courses, by recommending, liking and following the best content created by other learners. The so-called ‘network effect’ comes from many thousands of people learning from each other, but it needs careful management to reach its full potential.

The Innovating Pedagogy 2014 report (www.open.ac.uk/innovating) identifies 10 methods of teaching, learning and assessment that are gaining influence but which have not yet had a major impact on education. Other innovations covered by the report include: dynamic assessment where learners are offered personalised tests to support their learning; learning through storytelling; threshold concepts that are difficult to teach; and bricolage or creative tinkering with resources. Creative educational games such as Minecraft are bringing together bricolage and social learning, allowing millions of people to build shared cities and machines out of virtual interactive bricks.

Mike Sharples, Professor of Educational Technology at the OU and lead author of the Innovating Pedagogy report said: “Social networks have transformed entertainment from delivering books, radio and television programmes into holding a global conversation. The same is about to happen with education through social learning. That is a huge opportunity, but also a challenge to manage the discussion and file sharing. Learning on that scale can’t only be controlled centrally. It has to come through social network techniques that put learners in contact with others who share their interests, reward the best contributions and allow learners to report issues.”

Do it the Way way – its never too late to change your lifestyle

By Candice Lingam-Willgoss

In an age when the benefit of exercise and accessibility to fitness opportunities are at an all time high, UK statistics from the Health and Social Care Information Centre have reported that 25% of the population are reported as being clinically obese. Data related to physical activity doesn’t make any better reading, with the British Heart Foundation’s 2012 review reporting that less than 37% of adults take part in the recommended levels of physical activity. Exercise isn’t just about losing weight its about being healthy, it opens up a whole avenue of new opportunities, friendships and challenges to people, it involves embracing a new lifestyle, something marathon and ultra runner Steve Way knows only too well.

Seven years ago he weighted 16 stone, had a 20 a day cigarette habit and high blood pressure, role forward to Sunday and Way posted a 2:15:16 time seeing him finish 10th at the age of 40 in the Commonwealth Games Marathon, backing up his 4th at the London Marathon earlier this year. This turnaround for Way came in 2006 when he decided to run the London Marathon “on a whim” and saw him finish in 3 hours 7 minutes.

What is even more impressive about Way’s performance is that he has achieved this at the age of 40 – which also made his time at Sunday’s marathon an over 40’s British record beating the 1979 record held by Ron Hill. Furthermore, as well as reinforcing the findings of much research that has reported that ‘ultra’ and ‘endurance’ runners athletic performance improves with age (Peter, Rust, Knechtle, Rosenmann and Lepers, 2014) Way’s case also illustrates that it is never too late to make a lifestyle change. Seven years ago, Way wasn’t just unfit, he was unhealthy too, “Towards the end of 2007 I could hardly sleep,’ he told The Guardian. ‘I was coughing and waking up because of the smoking and it was impacting on my wife Sarah, too, ‘At that point half our meals were takeaways and I would eat chocolate and sweets all the time. I realised I had to do something radically different to break the cycle.‘ This type of trigger that started Way on his road to running success is not uncommon when people suddenly make a decision to change their lifestyle. When viewed from a theoretical perspective Way’s case seems representative of what is proposed within Rosenstock’s Health Belief Model which was developed in the 1950’s to help explain the likelihood of an individual engaging in preventative health behaviours (such as exercise in Way’s case). This model argues that this likelihood is determined by a persons perception of the severity of the potential illness/risk to them as well as their appraisal of the cost and benefits of taking action. In the case of Way is seems this perception also included the impact his lifestyle was having on his wife. We can only hope that Way becomes an inspiration and a role model – one that shows that people of any age can make a change to their lifestyle something that is clearly desperately needed in the UK. If Way’s story inspires just a few people to make a commitment to change their lifestyle, they will be the lucky ones who discover how much the sport and fitness world has to offer.