The Academic Achievement of Elite Athletes at Australian Schools

While sport and student-athletes have featured in the Australian education system since compulsory schooling, there has been no analysis to date of the link between academic achievement and elite student-athletes. However, this is in stark contrast to the United States of America (US), where student-athletes have been the subject of sustained research and examination. In order to rectify this neglected area of research in the Australian context, this study investigated the Higher School Certificate (HSC) results of 641 Combined High School (CHS) Blues recipients over 11 years from 2001 until 2011, comparing them with the performance of the total general HSC population over the same period. The HSC summary aggregate data for Blues recipients was examined for 15 subjects, plus gender and sport. School Index of Community Socio-Economic Advantage (ICSEA) value also formed part of the analysis. The results demonstrated the student-athletes performed at levels similar to, or better than, their peers. Their performance was notably superior in some subjects such as Personal Development, Health and Physical Education (PDHPE). In particular, female Blues performed at higher levels than male Blues, across the range of subjects. Female Blues also generally outperformed the general HSC population. Analysis of individual Blues sports suggests that swimming produced a disproportionate number of high attainers. The findings suggest that despite their heavy sporting commitments and necessarily demanding training timetables, the sampled elite student-athletes performed at levels equal to, or better than, their peers

"Lest We Forget": Sport in the Cultural Memory of Australians

During the Rugby Union World Cup held in Australia in 2003, the nationally circulated Australian newspaper printed a picture of Jonny Wilkinson on the front page of the sports section with the headline: "Is that all you've got?" London's Daily Mirror responded with the same caption and a picture of Kylie Minogue. But this isn't all Australia has got. It has Kylie and sport. Many scholars might argue there is a great deal more to Australia than sport, but at the same time, sport has been a significant force in defining the national consciousness

Responses of study abroad students in Australia to experience-based pedagogy in sport studies

This paper contributes to research on the scholarship of teaching in the physical education/sport studies fields by examining the responses of study abroad students from overseas studying in Australia to a unit of study in sport studies that placed the interpretation of experience as the centre of the learning process. It draws on research conducted at an Australian university over an 18-month period and involving 170 participants. The study focused on the ways in which student motivations, inclinations, expectations and prior experience interacted with experiences of living in Australia and the experience-based nature of the unit of study shaped their responses and perceptions of learning

Stroke genetics informs drug discovery and risk prediction across ancestries

Previous genome-wide association studies (GWASs) of stroke — the second leading cause of death worldwide — were conducted predominantly in populations of European ancestry1,2. Here, in cross-ancestry GWAS meta-analyses of 110,182 patients who have had a stroke (five ancestries, 33% non-European) and 1,503,898 control individuals, we identify association signals for stroke and its subtypes at 89 (61 new) independent loci: 60 in primary inverse-variance-weighted analyses and 29 in secondary meta-regression and multitrait analyses. On the basis of internal cross-ancestry validation and an independent follow-up in 89,084 additional cases of stroke (30% non-European) and 1,013,843 control individuals, 87% of the primary stroke risk loci and 60% of the secondary stroke risk loci were replicated (P < 0.05). Effect sizes were highly correlated across ancestries. Cross-ancestry fine-mapping, in silico mutagenesis analysis3, and transcriptome-wide and proteome-wide association analyses revealed putative causal genes (such as SH3PXD2A and FURIN) and variants (such as at GRK5 and NOS3). Using a three-pronged approach4, we provide genetic evidence for putative drug effects, highlighting F11, KLKB1, PROC, GP1BA, LAMC2 and VCAM1 as possible targets, with drugs already under investigation for stroke for F11 and PROC. A polygenic score integrating cross-ancestry and ancestry-specific stroke GWASs with vascular-risk factor GWASs (integrative polygenic scores) strongly predicted ischaemic stroke in populations of European, East Asian and African ancestry5. Stroke genetic risk scores were predictive of ischaemic stroke independent of clinical risk factors in 52,600 clinical-trial participants with cardiometabolic disease. Our results provide insights to inform biology, reveal potential drug targets and derive genetic risk prediction tools across ancestries

Sporting Links: The Greek Diaspora and the Modern Olympic Games

It is now well established and accepted that the Greeks played a significant role in the modern Olympic movement. Up until recently, their acknowledged involvement was unjustly relegated to hosting the very first Olympic Games in 1896 and being one of only two countries to have participated in all Games