International event will draw clinicians and scientists together with coaches and athletes ahead of World Junior Track and Field Championships
EUGENE, Ore. – (July 9, 2014) – Before the best teenage track and field athletes compete in the International Association of Athletics Federations World Junior Track and Field Championships, Hayward Field will attract a different kind of the best in their field.
The University of Oregon will host the International Sports Science Symposium on Performance Enhancement and Technology from July 18 to July 21.
The symposium, hosted by the UO’s Bowerman Sports Science Clinic of the Department of Human Physiology, will bring together 150 experts and attendees from the international sports science community to present research and conduct panel discussions on the application of science in today’s competitive sports environment.
Registration is open until July 11. Tickets are $10 for students and $75 for the general public.
Sessions will explore topics including: training effects of high-intensity interval training, the impact of javelin design on joint forces, brain responses to soccer-heading impacts, the effects of training at altitude and more.
“Sports performance – for amateur, professional and weekend warriors – is more science-based than ever before, and that is what the research being presented demonstrates,” said Mike Hahn, faculty member in human physiology at the UO.
According to Dr. Hahn, also director of the Bowerman Sports Science Clinic, what makes this symposium unique is the opportunity to bring clinicians and scientists together with coaches, athletes and others to discuss issues surrounding performance enhancement, adaptive technology, environmental physiology and drugs and sport.
“Bringing clinicians and scientists to the same table with the people impacted by the applied science – the athletes and coaches – is important and we are facilitating as many of those opportunities as possible with our symposium,” he said.
Keynote speakers include:
- Stan James from the Slocum Center for Orthopedics and Sports Medicine will talk about the effects of training on sport performance, injury prevention and injury management and will share perspective from decades in the field going back to collaborating with Bill Bowerman in the 1960s.
- David Cowan from King’s College London Drug Control Centre, a member of key international committees that led to the first World Anti-Doping Convention, will discuss the physiological effects and status of performance-enhancing drugs in sport.
- Eli Wolff from the Institute for Human Centered Design at Brown University will talk about adaptive technology, a topic he has personal experience with as a member of the U.S. Paralympic Soccer team in 1996 and 2004.
- Jack Daniels from Wells College will share his expertise about human physiological adaptations to conditions of extreme temperature and high altitude from his experience as an athlete, coach and scientist.
In addition, researchers representing the UO, Oregon State University, Oregon Health and Science University, University of Washington, Mayo Clinic and University of Michigan will participate with colleagues from Australia, Canada, Singapore and Russia.
Some participants say they plan to stay in Eugene for the World Junior Championships beginning July 22 following the conclusion of the symposium, which was the hope of organizers.
“Having the world junior championships located steps away from the Bowerman Sports Science Clinic is a really great opportunity to highlight the current research going on in this area, and we felt this was something that we couldn’t pass up,” Hahn said.
About the University of Oregon
The University of Oregon is among the 108 institutions chosen from 4,633 U.S. universities for top-tier designation of "Very High Research Activity" in the 2010 Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. The UO also is one of two Pacific Northwest members of the Association of American Universities.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julie Brown, UO public affairs communications, 541-346-3185, julbrown@uoregon.edu
SOURCE: Mike Hahn, Bowerman Sports Science Clinic, 541-346-3554, mhahn@uoregon.edu
Note: The University of Oregon is equipped with an on-campus television studio with a point-of-origin Vyvx connection, which provides broadcast-quality video to networks worldwide via fiber optic network. In addition, there is video access to satellite uplink, and audio access to an ISDN codec for broadcast-quality radio interviews.
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