Polluted host cities are putting our champion athletes at risk

By Helen Owton

At the recent Athletic World Championships in Beijing, not only did the athletes have to train for heat and humidity, they were also faced with competing in one of the world’s most polluted cities. Unfortunately, coping with poor air quality is nothing new for the world’s top athletes.

As the world looks forward to next year’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, concerns have been raised about the city’s water pollution. But the Brazilian metropolis also suffers from similar air quality problems to those of most major developing world settlements, which can cause [significant short and long-term health issues. Even major developed cities such as 2012 Olympic host London, which have relatively clean air compared to the worst offenders, regularly breach international guidelines on “safe” levels of air pollution.

Air pollutants involve a complex mixture of small and large particles of varying origin and chemical composition. This includes fossil fuel emissions, industrial dust, windblown soil and secondary pollutants formed from reactions in the atmosphere. The particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide that this is made up from have all been shown to have a profound effect on physical performance but also lung function and health more generally.

Two of the main causes of air pollution in many cities are the presence of polluting industries and the large daily number of vehicles. Car emissions are estimated to be the greatest single contributor to urban air pollution. Their toxic constituents contribute to respiratory disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer.

In London, for example, the poor air quality has been responsible for a total of 9,416 premature deaths. Estimated figures for the future suggest that air pollution in Britain may be responsible for 60,000 early deaths a year. In Beijing, figures suggest that air pollution is responsible for 1.2m deaths a year (40% of the global total). These premature deaths could be prevented if air quality was improved.

Health impacts

Athletes visiting a polluted city for a competition don’t seem likely to suffer the same long-term health effects as its inhabitants (although recent research challenges this idea), but pollution can limit their performance. Those who compete in endurance competitive races such as the marathon are most at risk because the marked increase in their breathing rate and amplified nasal and oral functions mean they breathe in more pollutants.

At the recent Beijing event, for example, athletes may have inhaled increasingly large doses of ozone and fine particles. This could have made respiration more difficult and reduced the amount of oxygen getting to the muscles, significantly impairing performances in endurance events.

Marathon runners are at greater risk.
China Stringer Network/Reuters

Fine particles are more dangerous because they can be inhaled deeper into the lungs and so take longer for the body to remove, increasing the potential for adverse effects. Higher quantities of ozone primarily influence on the lungs and respiratory tract, causing the smooth muscles surrounding the airways to constrict.

Some athletes are more sensitive to air quality than others. For example, those with chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma react more to ozone than the general population. Some research also suggests there may be genetic differences in how susceptible individuals are to pollutants. And while it is possible to develop a tolerance to pollutants such as ozone, this sort of exposure may be potentially harmful because of the damage to or loss of the body’s normal defence mechanism.

Taking action

British athletes have recently been given pollution masks, which might protect the respiratory system from the effects of toxic gases and pollutants, but research is limited and inconclusive. There isn’t much evidence to suggest that it even works. Additionally, some argue that wearing the masks may limit performance because athletes are not accustomed to wearing them.

Athletes can also take antioxidant supplements, which have been shown to slightly improve the adverse effects of pollutants. They work by countering the oxidative stress mechanism, the breakdown of the body’s ability to detoxify or repair the damage caused, associated with such pollutants.

In the long-term, however, athletes will continue to risk competing in polluted environments unless sports authorities take more of a stand against holding events in highly polluted cities. Tokyo is hosting Olympic 2020, where they are struggling to maintain safe pollution levels, and Beijing has again been named as the next host city for the Olympic Winter Games 2022.

The Olympic Games may act as a vehicle for change in some cities, but how many times must athletes put their bodies on the line before this change includes pollution? Perhaps it’s time sports bodies prioritised their athletes and included stricter environmental regulations, such as endorsing testing for viruses from water pollution, when awarding competitions.

The Conversation

Helen Owton, Lecturer in Sport & Fitness, The Open University

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

The astonishing comebacks at the Athletics World Championships

By Helen Owton

 

It seems to be the year of the comeback at the Athletics World Championships in Beijing. Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, widely tipped to lose out to US runner Justin Gatlin, ran a time of 9:77 in the 100m final to beat his rivals and retain his title as world champion. It has been described as the most important win of an already stellar career.

Bolt had been recovering from an injury and had struggled with his form. It appears to have had a sacroiliac joint block, which was restricting his movement and causing him pain in his leg.

This type of injury can be a common problem for athletes, but it is under-researched so treatment and recovery is complex. The fact that Bolt had to overcome this poorly understood condition will make his victory all the sweeter.

British long-distance runner Mo Farah also fought back in the early days of the competition to win the 10,000m in style, notwithstanding one small stumble.

Farah has been engulfed in controversy in recent months after his trainer, Alberto Salazar, was the subject of doping allegations levelled in a BBC Panorama documentary. There is no suggestion that Farah himself was involved in, or had any knowledge of doping, but the intense media scrutiny to which he was subjected would not have made preparation for Beijing easy.

 

Jessica Ennis-Hill achieved a comeback of a different kind in Beijing. Ennis-Hill returned to athletics this year after having a child. While in my research I acknowledge that sport is a psychologically empowering force for mothers, it can also lead to conflict between the competing roles of athlete and parenthood. And since the London 2012 Olympics, Ennis-Hill has changed both physically and psychologically. It was fascinating to see her new body and self perform. She is an inspiration, having won a gold medal in the heptathlon.

With Bolt, Farah and Ennis-Hill retaining their titles, will any others follow in their footsteps to make their comeback this week?

Caster Semenya

For me, one of the most unforgettable memories in recent athletics history was the women’s 800m at the World Championships in Berlin in 2009. The women gathered themselves for the final. BANG. They sprint out of the blocks and take the bend. Caster Semenya sits behind the front runner, then at 52 seconds into the race, she overtakes to lead from the front. She speeds ahead, breaks away, glances back but the others have no response. She completely dominates the last half of the race and finishes with a time of 1:55:46.

Since this phenomenal performance, instead of being hailed a star, Semenya has been at the centre of huge controversy over her gender and which prevented her from competing until the following year. This has undoubtedly had an impact on her motivation and her personal best time.

Despite the adversity she experienced, Semenya was back at her best, or near it, at the IAAF World Championships in 2011 when she won silver in the 800m. Here’s hoping she can pull through for another astonishing victory this year.

Christine Ohuruogu

Christine Ohuruogu is making a return to defend her 400m world title in Beijing. Over the years, like many athletes, she has experienced injuries – and she was also suspended for a year after missing three doping tests in a row in 2006.

Often talented athletes are pushed into the limelight without being prepared for media attention and being subjected to public scrutiny. Nonetheless, Ohuruogu has a habit of being unpredictable and can pull out fast times when they’re least expected.

Dina Asher-Smith

Dina Asher-Smith, also part of the Great Britain squad, is one of many of the young athletes to watch in the 200m. She broke Britain’s national 100m record earlier this year.

Smoke gets in their eyes

There are some elements of unpredictability ahead for athletics. In 2008, Beijing went to additional lengths to cut down on the city’s infamous air pollution for the sake of competing athletes, but for the IAAF World Championships 2015, this hasn’t happened.

British athletes have been given “pollution packs” but for athletes with asthma, this high level of pollution can alter the airways’ responsiveness and can cause long-term damage.

In 2008, human rights activists highlighted the fact that child athletes’ civil rights, legal rights and above all, their human rights are ignored in China. Amid the individual performances, there are certainly some more opportunities for new and evolving stories to be developed at this World Championships.

UPDATE: the original version of this piece misstated the name of Justin Gatlin, and claimed Semenya broke the World Record in 2009. She did not.

The Conversation

Helen Owton, Lecturer in Sport & Fitness, The Open University

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

Records to beat and battles to watch at the World Athletics Championships

By Candice Lingam-Willgoss

This year’s World Athletics Championships kicking off in Beijing couldn’t come at a better time for many athletes. It is a chance for athletic performance to take centre stage, a change in focus from the recent doping controversy that has shrouded the sport.

While we know that three medals will be awarded for each event, what is less known is which records may fall. So far this year, 11 world records have been broken in indoor and outdoor events. But some athletics records have stood for decades, and will take some beating.

So which are the events with the most giant-slaying potential? Here’s a quick guide.

Women’s events

Many of the women’s events have long-standing records. The women’s 100m record of 10.49 seconds, set by Florence Griffith-Joyner, remains unbeaten since 1988. In men’s events, Michael Johnson’s 400m world record of 43:18 set in 1999 still stands today.

Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk is the hammer to beat.
EPA/Piotr Wittman

Poland’s Anita Wlodarczyk has already posted a world-record throw in the women’s hammer this year, so undoubtedly is the favourite in Beijing. She is tipped to better her 81.08m throw set at the Festival of Throwers meeting in Cetniewo, Poland, a monumental distance and the first time the 80m barrier has been broken by a woman. Such a huge improvement suggests that Wlodarczyk has the potential to throw even further in Beijing.

Giant leaps

Like Johnson’s long-standing 400m record, another that has stood for 20 years is Jonathan Edwards’s triple jump record – currently at 18.28m.

Current Olympic champion Christian Taylor is still 23cm short of this, but this record is what he has his sights on, and has been his goal since entering the sport.

Christian Taylor is the current Olympic champion triple jumper.
EPA/Olivier Anrigo

Taylor will have some competition in the shape of Cuba’s Pedro Pablo Pichardo who recently jumped out to 18.06 at the IAAF Diamond League meeting in Doha. This competition could be the one to see this long-standing record fall.

Bolt v Gatlin

It will take a record-breaking time to win the 4x100m men’s relay. The event which will see Jamaica’s team (featuring the fastest man in the world, Usain Bolt) take on America (featuring Justin Gatlin).

Bolt vs Gatlin: the high-speed duel everyone’s been talking about.
EPA/Thierry Roge

The Bolt/Gatlin showdown is hotly anticipated and the two athletes will first face each other in the men’s 100m. At 33, Gatlin is five years older than Bolt and has twice been found guilty of doping. Much has been made of this contest and many have suggested that Gatlin will not only take Bolt’s 100m title but will also claim his world record, which was set in 2009.

Long walk to stardom

While the 100m is undoubtedly the most hyped, the 20km walk could also see a new record set. Research has frequently cited the benefits of competing at home and this could well be the case for Liu Hong as she attempts to go faster than her 1.24.38 time set at the Premio Cantones de Marcha – the Spanish leg of the 2015 IAAF Race Walking Challenge in La Coruna.

China’s golden walker, Liu Hong.
Denis Balibouse/Reuters

Briton Mo Farah also has the potential to break records in Beijing. He is in the form of his life, having broken the two mile indoor record earlier this year. While Farah has said the wins are the priority he hasn’t ruled out tackling Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele’s 5,000m (12:37.35) and 10,000m (26:17.53) outdoor records.

What is certain is that the coming nine days of competition guarantee to have their fair share of drama, medals and hopefully some record-breaking performances.

The Conversation

Candice Lingam-Willgoss is Lecturer in Sport & Fitness at The Open University

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

F

The other giant leap for mankind: how this athlete set a world record that’s still standing 20 years later

By Ben Oakley

In the late evening Scandinavian sun at the 1995 World Athletics Championship, Jonathan Edwards, a British triple jumper, was the tenth t jump out of of 12 finalists. He took a minute to collect himself, then sped down the runway to jump 18.16m, breaking his own world record by 18 centimetres.

Edwards wandered around in a contented daze, waiting for the distance to be displayed when he heard the crowd roar as they saw the scoreboard before he did. The jump was valid. Then, 25 minutes later Edwards went again; he looked incredibly relaxed before he sprinted for his second celebratory jump, whose rhythm and smoothness produced a further distance of 18.29m. The stadium exploded in a tumult of shared joy of witnessing something very special.

And very special it was – that record has stood for 20 years now. In a world where athletes constantly shave millimetres, seconds and nano-seconds off previous bests, that jump in 1995 is assuming the status of a mythical feat. The closest anyone else has got is 20cm away – Kenny Harrison (USA) at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. More recently, Cuban Pedro Pablo Pichardo’s steady annual improvements have seen him come within 21cm.

How did Edwards do it? He described it as a magic combination of timing and speed, power and touch. And studying his 2001 authorised biography, A Time to Jump, and his subsequent public comments can give us more insight.

Early years

A key ingredient in Edwards’s success was a genetic blueprint that meant he had raw speed on the track (according to his biography, his best 100m time is 10.48 sec). Speed as you approach take-off in triple and long jump is one of the key pre-requisites of success, since it translates into horizontal distance when jumping. But genetic potential is the relatively easy part; the rest is a blend of multiple factors.

Growing up in Ilfracoumbe, a modest town in Devon, South West England, helped. Where you grow up influences the likelihood of sporting success with small towns enabling a more supportive developmental climate. It’s often better to be a big fish in a small pond. West Buckland private school also allowed Edwards to thrive in a diverse range of sports including rugby, basketball, tennis, athletics, cricket and gym.

Participating in a rich mix of different sports in childhood is the optimal preparation for future success in most sports. Learning to move in varied ways is the best foundation, rather than specialising in one sport from an early age which might be called “extreme nurture”. Edwards eventually concentrated on jumping at the age of 21.

At school, his diminutive stature earned the nickname of “Titch” and a birthdate in May magnified his late physical development in comparison with others in his school year. A concerned PE teacher was frightened to select him for inter-school rugby fearing for his safety. Children born in May, June, July and August, the youngest in their school year, are less likely to get selected for squads in adolescence, but are more likely to achieve senior professional status: a reversal of the relative age effect. The additional challenge experienced by these initially disadvantaged younger athletes is thought to build resilience – a key component for success.

18 metre man.
John Giles/PA

Faith and training

To succeed, champions need to learn their craft. After graduating in Physics from Durham University, the 1988 Olympics was his first major event at the start of his elite development. Fortunately his body responded well to training and he mostly stayed injury-free, both of which are starting to be recognised as having genetic components.

An international athlete’s craft involves refining diet, responding to coaching analysis, conditioning in the gym and making wise travel arrangements. While in the arena, optimising the warm-up, saving energy for competition and coping with pressure all need to be incrementally developed through experience.

After six years of full-time training, aged 27, following disappointment at both the 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games, Edwards made the World Championships podium (bronze) having leapt 17.44 metres. Jumping a whole metre further seemed impossible at that time.

Athletes need to be fascinated with this process of improving. The paradox is that they need to be able to make sense of this seemingly selfish pursuit; a need to be content with the purpose of their lives. At times Edwards battled with realising his talent and fulfilling his strong Christian obligations which until 1993 meant he would not compete on Sundays. His evangelical faith helped make sense of optimising his jumping talent: it was in service to God. Many years later, in retirement and after losing his faith, he said that looking back “faith gave me more perspective on success or failure, it was my sport psychology in a way”.

A further ingredient of success is rest and recovery. Edwards was forced to recuperate after contracting Epsterin Barr virus in 1994; it meant he was revived as he eased his way back into training. It also gave him time to think deeply about his jumping technique including a new two-arm swing skywards.

The big jump

The final ingredient in the mix is supreme confidence. Edwards’s 1995 season started well. A national record in his first contest, he was on his way. Then in June he achieved the longest leap of all time, 18.43m in Lille. Unfortunately the jump was only a hair’s breath, 0.4m/sec, over the legal wind threshold. But he had re-defined the parameters of the sport.

He first broke the world record properly weeks later in Salamanca with 17.98m. Then came Gothenberg and his place in history. Watching the footage of his second, record-breaking jump, you can see that on the runway he is relishing the moment having just broken the world record again minutes previously. He knows he might do it again and is supremely confident and relaxed.

Later, he admitted that if he could combine the physicality of Gothenberg with the technical perfection of Lille he believed 18.60m was possible. He never achieved such a distance, but five years later he won gold in the 2000 Olympics, aged 34.

Jonathan Edwards’ path from a cherubic vicarage schoolboy to the 20th anniversary of his enduring triple jump world record reveals rich insights about the complex jigsaw of podium success.

Often discussions of elite athletics all too easily fall into a facile nature-nurture debate. Probing athlete’s biographies alongside research can reveal fascinating and varied routes to the top. And there are few higher (or further) athletic achievements than that great leap in 1995.

The Conversation

Ben Oakley is Head of Childhood, Youth and Sport at The Open University.

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

‘The Silent Voice’ in dance and ballet

By Helen Owton & Helen Clegg

Dance is generally considered to be more accepting of gay men and research (e.g. Risner, 2009) shows that gay and bisexual men comprise 50% of the male population who dance in the US compared to 4-10% in the general population. However, whilst the dance world may acknowledge the presence of a larger proportion of gay men there remains an implicit homophobia in terms of a demand for heternormative performance (Risner, 2007). Ever mindful of the audience male dancers are expected to conform to a narrow concept of the masculine ideal that perpetuates the heterosexual “norm”. For example, in Risner’s (2009) study one participant, when being encouraged to dance with more strength, was told not to dance “like a fag” by his dance teacher.

As Strictly Come Dancing start their rehearsals, we consider ‘the silent voice’ in dance and ballet. Whilst dance is considered more accepting of homosexuality, the majority of this association is regarded towards the acceptance of gay men in dance, not women. Even discussions about inclusions of a same-sex couple in Strictly Come Dancing only involve gay men. Whilst homophobia in dance exists in different ways in dance (compared to sport) with masculinist comparisons and heterosexist approaches means that there seems to be a kind of quiet internal “acceptance” that obscures larger social issues that makes encounter. However, what strikes us is the lack of visible lesbians in professional dance.

Whilst the sexualising of dance and lesbianism for the purpose of the ‘male gaze’ exists in a pornographic sense, there seems to be a silent voice in professional dance about lesbians. Black Swan received the most complaints about the lesbianism portrayed in the film being pornographic and distasteful; an “overtly sexualised ‘hot-but-non-threatening’ feminine lesbian.” (Dixon, 2015, p.45) In Black Swan, a heterosexual woman was represented as experimenting with other women and seemingly “functioned instead as a kind of ‘sexy’ addendum to female heterosexuality.” (Dixon, 2015, p.45) However, when feminine lesbians are portrayed in this way, “Girl-on-girl action is presented as exciting, fun, but, crucially, as entirely unthreatening to heterosexuality.” (Gill, 2009, p.153)

“It may well be tempting to think that lesbians have equality, recognition achieved, on the basis of the supposed tolerance of the kinds of images made visible and perpetuated through the medium and marketing of films like Black Swan, which are then replicated to convey a similar sentiment in the promotion of places like Sitges as ‘cosmopolitan’. What I am arguing, however, is that whenever and wherever this does occur, we have to be completely and utterly certain that inequalities are not simply being reiterated at the exact moment the opposite is being said to have been achieved; to be certain that is, that in perpetuating and celebrating such representations we are not all simply hiding behind the faces of white masks.” (Dixon, 2015, p. 52)

Lesbians have been more connected to sports (Griffin, 1998) and there is a long standing connection between homophobia/heterosexism and women’s participation in sport (Iannotta & Kane, 2002). Women’s team sports are sometimes seen as an environment that promotes the expression of homosexuality. Does being a female dancer/ballerina render sexuality inauthentic because they are more feminine?

Boulila (2011) describes her experience at an LGB salsa class where one of the women believed that the very fact that she was a lesbian meant that she embodied the very “antithesis of elegance in dance”. This may be linked to the intertwining of the stereotype of “butch lesbians” which has been associated with sports and the idea that female dancers are there to embody heterosexual fantasies of the audience. Such binary categorisations of heterosexual and homosexual women in dance, particularly in ballet, encourages the belief that lesbians just don’t dance. Indeed, when asked to estimate the number of lesbians in their dance company across 36 companies only 1 dancer (a participant of the study) was identified as gay (Oberschneider & Bailey, 1997). Whilst this paper is nearly 20 years old more recent work (see Boulila, 2011) and blogs suggest that the idea of lesbian dancers continues to be believed to be a misnomer. We argue that lesbians do dance they just aren’t “coming out”.

So where does this leave us moving forward for women and lesbians in dance? Whilst it is not their sole responsibility to ‘come out’ it does question why there is such a silent voice of lesbians in dance and also an association between femininity, lesbianism and authenticity. Ballet and other forms of disciplined dance appear to be a closet for lesbians which is why it is so important to have ‘queer’ spaces in dance (e.g. Matthew Bourne) that disrupt gender binary frameworks; Firebird (by Katy Pyle), Ineffable (by Lohse) and the Queer Tango Dance Festival 8-12 July 2015 held in (anti-gay) Russia continue to challenge binary frameworks (e.g. male-female, feminine-masculine) for gay women as well.

References

Boulila, S. C. (2011). You Don’t Move Like a ‘Lesbian’: Negotiating Salsa and Dance Narratives. In 18th Lesbian Lives Conference, University of Leeds.

Dixon, L.J. (2015). Black swans, white masks: Contesting cosmopolitan and double misrecognition in a gay tourist town. Sexualities, 18(1/2), 37-56. Available: http://sex.sagepub.com/content/18/1-2/37.full.pdf+html

Gill, R. (2009). Beyond the ‘sexualization of culture’ thesis: An intersectional analysis of ‘sixpacks’,‘midriffs’ and ‘hot lesbians’ in advertising. Sexualities, 12(2), 137–160

Oberschneider, M. & Bailey, J.M. (1997). Sexual orientation and professional dance. Archives of Sexual behavior, 26(4), 433-444.

Risner, D. (2007) Rehearsing masculinity: challenging the ‘boy code’ in dance education, Research in Dance Education, 8(2), 139-153

Risner, D. (2009) Stigma and Perseverance in the Lives of Boys who Dance. Lampeter, TheEdwin Mellen Press.

The performance story that is pushing Chris Froome towards Tour number two

By Karen Howells

Originally published in The Conversation on 24th July 2015

Assuming no last minute collapses in form or bone-breaking crashes, Chris Froome will ride along Champs-Élysées on Sunday as the winner of the 2015 Tour de France and the only British man in history to win the race twice. This was achieved in a Tour characterised by high speed crashes, the throwing of urine and abuse at Froome, reports of a data hack into his Sky team’s files to cast doubt on the legitimacy of his success, and a spectre of doping that refuses to leave the mountains.

Then of course, there is the small matter of 3,400km of bike racing against highly motivated rivals. Victory in this most brutal test of human endurance is within reach, but what explains why Froome chose to push his body so hard in pursuit of success?

Is he just that rare breed of cyclist who can excel on the flat, in the mountains, and in team and individual time trials? Or, is there something else more elusive that shapes a champion? The narratives that elite athletes construct and detail in their autobiographies are becoming an established source of data for scholars who seek access to the underlying identities of elite athletes to understand a champion mindset. Froome’s autobiography The Climb gives us useful look at how he has constructed his narrative.

Goal oriented. Paris.
Luke Ma, CC BY

Suffering

Froome depicts his passage from being a skinny kijana (youngster) racing his mentor in the Ngong Hills in Kenya to triumph in the 2013 Tour de France. His story comprises a number of intertwined narratives of which the most dominant is a performance narrative. The term, coined by Kitrina Douglas and David Carless, involves a single-minded dedication to sport, and the prioritization of winning above all else that might impact on the athlete’s mental well-being, identity, and self-worth. In addition to being dominant in Froome’s memoir it can be seen as the prevailing narrative in other autobiographies, such as that of Olympic champion Michael Phelps.

Froome’s performance narrative is framed by accounts of suffering. In fact, his repetitive use of the word reminds the reader that suffering, particularly on his bike, is what characterises his life. His Kenyan birthplace is known for its world class runners but has had little success in cycling. What it also has is mountains, and it is in these mountains that Froome developed his highly focused resilience. As onlookers we have seen his single-minded motivation, against the odds, towards becoming a multiple Tour winner. His resilience is evident in the face of pretty much relentless doping insinuations in the French press and particularly through social media, as well as in his response to urine being thrown at him, and in the searing conditions of the Tour.

It is in the mountains though where we get to see Froome’s solace in suffering. And perhaps it has been no better demonstrated this year than in the mountain finish at La Pierre-Saint-Martin when Froome attacked to gain more than a minute on all of his main rivals.

Official coverage highlights from Stage 10 of the 2015 Tour

Quest questions

We all experience adversity, and champions are no different, but perhaps it is their response to the distress and disappointment that provides the transformational processes that motivate them beyond mere coping. This is apparent in many sporting autobiographies such as in the memoirs of Olympic swimming champions, Amanda Beard and Ian Thorpe, where adversity and the positive outcomes, framed as “adversarial growth”, are central.

These accounts tend towards a more quest-focused narrative which involve the confrontation of adversity, seeking of meaning, an explicit drive to gain something positive from the adversity, and a rejection of the performance narrative. Froome’s story involves adversity and despite the lows he achieved ultimate success. Froome recounts harsh school conditions, illness (bilharzia), his mother’s death in 2008 while he was riding in Spain, and the frustrations of 2012 when he was assigned the role of domestique for Bradley Wiggins, nurturing his team leader through the stages to Paris (with only the odd false step).

Adversity was also evident in the build up to this second victory; a broken wrist in the 2014 Tour meant a stage five withdrawal and no replay of his 2013 glory. Unlike Beard and Thorpe though, Froome has never rejected the performance narrative, even if in modern cycling it contains its own dangers.

It may be the primary device explaining Froome’s drive, motivation, and sacrifice for cycling, but there is a limit to the pervasive script of this narrative. Froome has consistently attempted to draw a definitive red line as to the limit of his performance. His team this week was forced to reveal power data which claimed to show estimates put forward by an expert were massive overestimates. In a sport damaged by the admissions of Lance Armstrong, it is a curious by-product that Froome and Team Sky are as eager to shout about both the normality and exceptionality of his performance.

As Froome prepares to ride the remaining mountains on his road to Paris, we will be watching to see if that performance narrative will continue to produce the effort, sacrifice, and team ethic required for this and future tour victories.

The Conversation

Karen Howells is Lecturer in Sport and Fitness at The Open University.

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

The young dancer of the year misses the pointe about gender

By Helen Owton & Helen Clegg

“BBC Young Dancer 2015 is a brand new award for young people that showcases the very best of young British dance talent. Young dancers enter in one of four categories of dance: ballet, contemporary, hip hop and South Asian dance. BBC Young Dancer 2015 culminates in a grand final at Sadler’s Wells, when the best dancers in each category will dance against each other for the title.” (BBC website)

BBC Young Dancer of the Year 2015 was a wonderful showcase of the young talent currently within the dance world. In light of the lack of male representation in dance, The BBC Young Dancer of the Year award seems to have provided boys and men with a platform in which to be valued and recognised. However it also highlighted the gender inequalities in the dance world and suggested that these are reflective of a more pervasive gender imbalance within the workplace. It seems that the BBC have avoided much public scrutiny over the gender imbalance that existed on the programme. Some comments on social media were not happy with this:

“Guess what BBC – we don’t care. First a gender imbalance for the individual finals… Then the judges were mostly male as well, but that’s as per usual. And finally – the only female grand finalist came from an all-female category?! Hate to be a gender-ist, but the female and male bodies as well as personalities make for a different quality in dancing and I would be bored stiff watching an all-male dance performance at any point (this followed by an all-female), a mix is best.”

Whilst there was scrutiny over why particular dance styles were selected over others, and why and how dance styles could be compared to each other, there does not seem to be a discussion about why there was such a lack of female representation on the show. During this discussion we don’t want to take credit away from the boys who made it through to the final, but point out the inequalities that existed from the way the program was set up.

The Judges

Firstly, let’s take a look at the female-male distribution of judges. Only 33% of the judges were female on the shows. Just 30% of leading dance experts was female who selected the grand finalists. For the final, just one female was placed on the judging panel.

Dance is considered a female activity (Risner, 2009) so where are all these women at the top? For example, Arlene Phillips is a world-renowned director and choreographer, who is missing from these panels of experts. The BBC was accused of sexism and ageism when Arlene was taken off the Strictly Come Dancing panel. Indeed, figures show that older women are less likely to appear on TV.

Additionally, why wasn’t Darcey Bussell on one of the judging panels; particularly in the ballet finalist? For Ballet these were the leading panel of experts: Dominic Antonucci, Ballet Master of Birmingham Royal Ballet and Christopher Hampson, Artistic Director of Scottish Ballet with Kenneth Tharp, chief executive of The Place, who judged across all categories.

According to McPherson (2005), “men dominate executive, administrative, and artistic positions of nearly every ballet company in the United States” and women report feeling excluded from informal leadership and decision making networks ringing very true in the world of ballet. Instead of being held up as one of the leading experts in ballet, Darcey Barcell, CBE, former principle dancer of the Royal Ballet at 20years old and widely acclaimed as one of the best British Ballerinas was reduced to being the presenter of the show. Indeed, Williams (1992) argues that subtle forms of workplace discrimination push women out of male dominated occupations that involves decision-making.

With such a high percentage of judges being male, it’s no wonder that just one of the dancers in the final was female out of 6. Not only this, but in each category, there was always a lower percentage of females apart from one category which was all-female:

  • Ballet: 40% female
  • Contemporary: 40% female
  • Hip hop: 40% female
  • South Asian: 100% female

However, this is not just a problem with the BBC Young Dancer competition. In 2014, The Young British Dancer awards saw an all-male line up for the six available awards as well.

Possible Explanations

It is well documented that males are the minority in dance education environments (Risner, 2007). Dance in the Western World is generally considered a female activity and so those boys who dance are considered effeminate and often assumed to be homosexual (Polasek & Roper, 2011, Risner, 2014). Risner (2014) has documented widespread verbal, emotional and physical bullying of young male dancers due to these constructions. Thus it is possible that boys who decide to attend dance classes, despite such bullying, are those who are skilled at dance and so the variance in dance ability and passion for dance may have much greater variance for girls than boys with boys being at the top range of the distribution.

Furthermore, within the dance studio environment boys are nurtured and often receive preferential treatment compared to the girls and this may be in part to prevent boys from disengaging (Polasek & Roper, 2011, Risner, 2014). Stinson (2005) talks about how such privilege within, not just the studio, but also the dance world is accepted by both men and women and as such often goes unchallenged. Whilst female dancers are often encouraged to remain passive within the dance class and simply respond to commands, male dancers are often encouraged to participate more fully and challenge the passive position of student dancer as this enables them to reclaim their masculinity (Risner, 2007, Stinson, 2005).

The combination of highly dedicated and skilled males who hold an elite position within the dance class and are encouraged to put themselves forward and challenge the status quo may explain the gender inequality in both the BBC Young Dancer finalists and judges. It is possible that young male dancers were more encouraged by their dance teachers to audition for the competition and were more confident in their abilities to take on such a challenge. This could explain the number of male dancers in the semi-finals since this is a higher proportion of male dancers than female dancers given that male dancers are a minority in the dance world.

The valuing of male dancers, at the cost to female dancers, may also explain the gender inequality in the final contestants. This is not to say that the male dancers did not deserve to be in the semi-finals or finals; far from it. What we want is equally confident and privileged female dancers and a challenge to the inherent gender divisions within dance. Boys also need to know that they are achieving in dance because of their talent and not their gender. Boys need to come to dance unafraid of being bullied and without the fear of having their masculinity and sexuality under scrutiny; Russian boys and men don’t seem to experience this sort of discrimination. Girls need to come to dance knowing they will be as equally valued as boys and have permission to move from passive student to empowered dancer.

Where do we go from here?

Whilst it was a pleasure to watch all the finalists dance, we would like the gender imbalances in dance, for both males and females, to progress in a way that both male and female dancers feel valued for their abilities and skills. So then we are no longer distracted from such talent by the stark gender inequalities presented to us in such programmes as BBC Young Dancer of the Year.

References

Polasek, K.M. & Roper, E.A. (2011). Negotiating the gay malestereotype in ballet and modern dance. Research in Dance Education, 12(2), 173-193

Risner, D. (2007) Rehearsing masculinity: challenging the ‘boy code’ in dance education, Research in Dance Education, 8(2), 139-153

Risner, D. (2014). Bullying victimisation and social support of adolescent male dance students: an analysis of findings. Research in Dance Education, 15(2), 179-201.

Stinson, S.W. (2005). The Hidden Curriculum of Gender in Dance Education. Journal of Dance Education, 5(2), 51-57.

This article was originally published on The Psychology of Women’s Section Blog.

Read the original article here

What to expect from the IPC Swimming World Championships (13-19 July 2015)

As Wimbledon heads into it final weekend, another international competition begins on home soil.  Glasgow, a year on from hosting the Commonwealth Games, is the location for the IPC Swimming World Championships which takes place from 13 to 19 July 2015. The Championships will see over 650 swimmers from more than 50 countries looking to perform at the Tollcross International Swimming Centre ahead of the 2016 Rio Paralympic Games.  If you are unfamiliar with the event here is what to expect:

 Team GB

Seventeen swimmers, competing in front of a home crowd, will make up Team GB and comprises a number of world class athletes including multiple gold medal Paralympian Ellie Simmonds, four-time European champion Andrew Mullen, and Sascha Kindred who is competing at his seventh IPC Swimming World Championships.  As the build up to the championships gathered momentum, there was a British upset with S14 Paralympic Champion, Bethany Firth being forced to withdraw after she fractured her wrist in training with just two weeks to go.

Andrew Mullen (used with permission of Scottish Swimming)

Andrew Mullen (image used with permission of Scottish Swimming)

The rise of Disability Sport

Following the success of the London 2012 Paralympic Games an additional £8 million of National Lottery funding was provided to encourage more disabled people into sport.  This has been partially successful with 44 projects, mostly at grassroots level, receiving funding to increase participation in sport.  Last year Sport England identified that although the participation of disabled people in sport had risen, significant barriers still remain.  In their evaluation of their inclusive sport programme, Sport England recognised that swimming was one of the most commonly cited sports that disabled wanted to take part in, but had as yet been unable to do so.  The Paralympics in 2012 had a positive impact on the public perceptions of disability sport, but there is still more to be done.  The most commonly identified barrier cited was the ‘Attitude of Others’, which is in contrast to the practicalities that disabled people have typically identified as being the major barrier to participation in the past.  Although not every individual may aspire to perform at the level that we will see over the coming week, perhaps the excitement and live coverage of the event will not only inspire more disabled people to take part in swimming but also start to challenge some of the more negative attitudes that some people may hold about their participation in sport.

 The event

The event will take place in the 50m pool at Tollcross International Swimming Centre which was the venue for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.  Races will consist of swims in all four strokes (Freestyle, Backstroke, Breaststroke, Butterfly) and in the Individual Medley (IM: all four strokes in one race) across distances that range from 50 metres to 400 metres.  Swimmers are classified according to their disability and compete in events alongside other competitors who have been evaluated as having a comparable level of impairment.

 How are the swimmers classified?

All Paralympic sports involve a classification system to minimise the impact of impairments on the sport, in this case swimming.  Having an impairment is not sufficient for classification, it has to be shown that there is an impact on the sport.  Paralympic swimming caters for three impairment groups – physical, visual and intellectual and athletes compete in the same strokes as able-bodied swimmers namely Freestyle, Butterfly, Backstroke, Breaststroke and the Individual Medley (IM).  The sport class names in Swimming consist of a prefix “S” (Freestyle, Butterfly and Backstroke events), “SM” (Individual Medley), or “SB” (Breaststroke) and a number. The prefixes stand for the event and the number indicates the sport class the swimmers competes in.

The classification number indicates the impairment. Classification 1-10 involves some form of physical impairment, the lower the number the more severe limitation of the swimmer’s impairment.  Classification 11-13 involve visual impairment, and 14 indicates an intellectual impairment where the swimmer has an IQ below 75.

Classification is not a simple task and there have been a number of high profile controversial disputes over classification in recent years.  In the build up to the last World Championships in Montreal in 2013, gold medal Paralympian swimmer, Victoria Arlen (USA) was ruled ineligible to compete. Victoria had spent three years in a vegetative state because of an autoimmune disorder and woke with paralysis of the legs and a number of other symptoms consistent with the neurological condition transverse myelitis.  However, after winning a gold medal in London 2012 in the S6 100m freestyle the International Paralympic Committee ruled that she was ineligible to compete in disability swimming events as she could not provide evidence of having a permanent impairment with no hope for recovery. More information on classification can be found at http://www.paralympic.org/swimming/classification

With a multitude of events, the scheduled appearance of many Paralympic stars, and several British medal hopes this competition looks set to be an exciting one!  Follow the excitement of the event and the fortunes of the Team GB stars at http://www.paralympic.org/glasgow-2015.

 

 

Parenthood and Tennis – the challenge of being an athletic parent

By Candice Lingam-Willgoss and Jessica Pinchbeck

A glance at the top seeded men and women at Wimbledon this year reveals an interesting contrast in terms of family. While Djokovic, Federer and Wawrinka all have young families none of the top ten seeded women in this year’s tournament have children. While sporting mothers are not an uncommon concept, it seems within the world of tennis motherhood and being a professional athlete are a harder combination to balance, with research in the field recognizing how pregnancy and motherhood are key reasons why female athletes may end their career. (Nash, 2011). There is no hidden reason why so few female players give birth during their career, and these are in no way unique to tennis, very few women want to harm their career in their twenties whether that is sporting or otherwise, but perhaps more importantly for an athlete is the physical impact that pregnancy and having a baby can have on a woman. For the better part of a year if not longer the competitive regime is gone, add to that the return to playing which sees huge demands on an athlete in terms of time and travel which can prove almost impossible to handle, with tennis involving if not the most travel demands of any sport.

There are however, examples of tennis players who have managed to successfully combine the two worlds of motherhood and professional tennis, one such player is Lindsay Davenport, a player who is reported to have planned her first pregnancy and only retired when pregnant with her second child. While the demands of tennis may mean it is difficult for a woman to continue to have a competitive career after children there seems to be little negative impact on actual performance. Take Kim Clijsters, who retired from tennis to have a family but made ‘The Mother of All Comebacks’ when she won the 2009 US Open a couple of years after retiring just 16 months after giving birth to Jada Ellie.

It is clear that women who do return to sport following their pregnancy come back as different athletes. Of the women who have made it to the third round of Wimbledon Dellacqua is possibly the only player to spend a night on the floor, taking a turn lying next to her son’s cot the night before a crucial 2nd round match. Dellacqua has highlighted how having her son has led to a shift in priorities and even credits being a mother as “helping me in lots of ways” saying that having another mouth to feed had only made her more focused on her career.

This change in focus is something echoed by Heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill, “Before I had Reggie, it was all about me, me, me,” she said recently. “Now Reggie comes before everything else, but I’m still really competitive. I want to be there, and be at my best again.” But she also recognises that it is hard to do, “I’d be lying if I said there hadn’t been days when I thought, ‘I’m not sure I want to do this, because this is really, really hard.’ I thought, ‘I’ve already become Olympic champion. Do I want all the stress again?’ But I have to give it a go. I don’t want to look back and think, ‘Oh, maybe I could have done it.’ This could explain why some women wait until they retire until they have a family as it makes the job of professional athlete so much harder. As Palmer and Leberman (2009) note it isn’t just the sleepless nights often it is the management of the multiple identities of athlete and mother that can prove difficult, with constraints such as guilt, lack of time and lack of support all being potential barriers to a smooth transition back into sport which explains why more elite female athletes choose to wait until they retire to have a family.

Although men don’t experience the physiological repercussions of having a baby, as evidenced by Federer returning to tennis 6 days after the birth of his twin boys, they are still subject to the psychological impact of becoming a parent and having to balance family life and the demands of being a professional tennis player. In the last 25 years there are only nine players that have won grand slams as fathers. Federer however has accomplished winning grand slams and holding the world number 1 ranking since becoming a father and the key to his success may well lie in the fact that his wife and children frequently travel to tournaments with him, thus alleviating the psychological stress of having to spend long periods of time away from his family. Djokovic became a father in 2014 and won his first grand slam as a father earlier this year beating Andy Murray to win his fifth Australian Open Title. Replicating the views of Ennis-Hill and Dellacqua Djokovic feels fatherhood has benefitted his career and his approach to tennis claiming ‘I think it has a deeper meaning, more intrinsic value now to my life because I am a father and a husband’. Taking advice from Federer and his methods of balancing fatherhood and tennis Djokovic’s family often travel with him to tournaments and this year he took time off before Wimbledon to spend time with his family.

This all sounds like an easy solution however it should be noted that both Federer and Djokovic became fathers while already having established careers and are typically wealthy and successful enough to travel with their family to various tournaments or to take short breaks from the sport. Other professional tennis players with less lucrative earnings aren’t quite as lucky. Ivo Karlovic has an ATP ranking of 25 but talks of the struggles he experiences spending time away from his wife and daughter and relies on Skype to keep in touch.

In a 1984 study of analysing magazine articles on leading male and female professional tennis players for males the status of star professional athlete superseded other statuses such as husband and father, however for the women players the status of female took priority over the status of athlete. However after watching and reading the Wimbledon media coverage the role of the father has become more prominent in male tennis with increased media coverage on stars such as Nadal and Federa and their role away from the court as fathers and husbands.

John McEnroe admits that having children brought out the best in him, describing how often on the tennis circuit players lose touch with reality but having children changes that. Karlovic acknowledges that having a child does change things for a father stating that before having a child everyone is a little bit selfish but once you have a child life completely changes and everything is about the child. Research also suggests that fatherhood ‘may lead to a decrease in the output of cultural displays (behaviour used by males to compete for potential mates, such as the competitiveness in sport) which could have a negative effect on sports performance. Studies also document that married men and in particular married fathers have lower testosterone levels but to date there is no research on the effect of this on tennis performance. There is also a lack of sufficient data on fatherhood and the role that social and familial status has on sporting performance.

So whether you are a professional tennis player and a mother or a professional tennis player and a father it would appear that parenthood brings about change and challenges men and women in different ways. Some of the change incurred has a positive effect on a player’s career and some of the transitions to being a parent may be difficult to manage alongside the lifestyle of being a professional athlete.

Can Jamieson overcome adversity to compete at Rio?

BBC Sport has recently reported on Olympic gold medallist David Wilkie’s predictions about the relative chances of Scottish swimmers Ross Murdoch and Michael Jamieson being selected for the British team for the 2016 Rio Olympics. Michael Jamison competed in London 2012 and was one of our few medal winners in the pool winning silver medal in the Men’s 200m breaststroke.  However, he has seen a drop in form since then being beaten into silver in the Commonwealth Games by then relative newcomer Ross Murdoch and then failing to qualify for the World Championships this year.  However, there has been some indication that Jamieson is heading in the right direction as he decisively beat Murdoch in the 200 breaststroke at the Scottish Nationals in Tollcross, Glasgow several weeks ago.  He is currently ranked 28th in the world this year.  Murdoch’s success has been somewhat more consistent, having won Gold at the Commonwealth Games, he qualified for the World Championships behind the world record holder in the 50m and 100m breaststroke, Adam Peaty.

Wilkie is reported as saying that Jamieson will find it difficult to make the team and that “I think it mentally destroyed Michael for a while and he had to go away and take stock and work out where he wants to be. . . . He’s a class swimmer but he took a big mental hit”. Both swimmers have a hard task ahead of them – the 200m breaststroke is one of the most hotly contested events in British Swimming with a number of swimmers posting FINA A times in 2015 and being in with a real chance of GB team selection, their current world ranking as at 8 July 2015 is shown in the brackets: Adam Peaty (2), Andrew Willis (5), Craig Benson (10), Calum Tait (16) and James Wilby (25), all being in with a chance of qualifying for the two positions for Rio.

So David Wilkie is probably right that Jamieson will struggle to make the team.  However, this is possibly due to the high number of high quality world class breaststrokers that Great Britain has produced over the last few years, rather than the mental hit that Wilkie refers to.  Academic research that I carried out as part of my PhD, suggests that the mental destruction (which could characterised as adversity) that Wilkie refers to may be in Jamieson’s favour rather than being a debilitating factor.  In research that involved an analysis of Olympic Swimming Champion’s autobiographies (Howells and Fletcher, 2015), we identified that swimmers competing at the highest level experience (adversarial) growth following negotiation of adversity.  Adversity was characterised as comprising developmental stressors (e.g., dyslexia), external stressors (e.g., organisational stressor), embodied states (e.g., injury), psychological states (e.g., body image concerns) and externalized behaviours (e.g., self-harm) and involved a threat to the individual’s identity as a world class swimmer.  The growth that followed a transitional process, which included seeking meaning and the enlistment of social support, was characterised by enhanced relationships, increased spiritual awareness, prosocial behaviour, and importantly in the context of discussion about Michael Jamieson’s fortunes, superior performance. Furthermore, in a study of psychological resilience in Olympic champions, Fletcher and Sarkar (2012) found that “most of the participants argued that if they had not experienced certain types of stressors . . . including highly demanding adversities such as parental divorce, serious illness, and career-threatening injuries, they would not have won their gold medals” (p. 672).

Maybe Jamieson can use the disappointment of the last two years to grow psychologically and achieve the superior performance that he needs to qualify for Rio next year.  But even if he can he will be up against some of the world’s best breaststrokers just to qualify.

References

Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, M. (2012). A grounded theory of psychological resilience in Olympic Champions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 13(5), 669-678.

Howells, K., & Fletcher, D. (2015). Sink or Swim: Adversity- and Growth-Related Experiences in Olympic Swimming Champions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 16, 37-48.