Pre-participation Cardiac Screening in Young Athletes: Models and Criteria

This is the second of two review articles focusing on the value of preparticipation cardiac screening in young athletes. The article focuses on the efficacy of the resting 12-lead electrocardiogram (ECG), physical examination, and medical history questionnaire, which commonly make up the first stage of a cardiac screening protocol. The review then focuses on specific structural and electrical abnormalities which are responsible for sudden cardiac death (SCD) in young athletes – the most common of which is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. The identification of appropriate ‘red flag’ signs and symptoms is essential for teasing out potential pathological conditions and allowing differentiation from often benign physiological adaptations. The final section provides guidance on how the resting 12-lead ECG can be used to separate pathological from physiological adaptations in young athletes

The role of corporates in creating sustainable Olympic legacies

The Olympic Games is a major stimulus for increased tourism. In recent years there have been greater calls for this and other mega events to leave sustainable positive legacies for the host city, partly to offset the massive cost of hosting. To date, little consideration has been afforded to the role of corporates might play in contributing to event legacies. This gap is compounded by the lack of research examining stakeholder engagement in legacy planning more generally. This paper adopts Holmes, Hughes, Mair and Carlsen’s (2015) sustainable event legacy timeline to conceptualise how corporates through the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives of sponsorship and employee volunteering can engage across the Olympic event planning cycle to generate volunteering legacies. Drawing upon a comparative study of the Sydney 2000 and London 2012 Olympic Games, tentative evidence of corporate engagement was noted but for the most part it was fragmented and CSR initiatives primarily focused on the immediate planning and delivery stages of the event cycle. The paper advances new knowledge of how volunteering legacies can be generated through the best practice engagement of corporates as key stakeholders involved in legacy planning and governance across the Olympic planning cycle

The Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies: An Introduction

Introduction to The International Journal of Japanese Sociology Special Issue: 'The Olympic Games in Japan and East Asia: Images and Legacies,' edited by Mike Featherstone & Tomoko Tamar

Sports Corruption: Sporting Autonomy, Lex Sportiva and the Rule of Law

An apparent escalation in on-field corruption (doping and match-fixing) in professional sports has led to increasing numbers of athletes facing bans and a loss of livelihood as a consequence of decisions taken by sporting tribunals, as part of a regulatory system referred to as lex sportiva. This has led to challenges in domestic courts from athletes over the lawfulness and fairness of these proceedings (for example Pechstein and Kaneria). These challenges to the legitimacy of lex sportiva (and to the principle of the autonomy of sport) echo Foster’s (2003) critique of lex sportiva/global sports law as: "a cloak for continued self-regulation by international sports federations…a claim for non-intervention by both national legal systems and by international sports law… [which] opposes a rule of law in regulating international sport." The paper considers what is the ‘rule of law’ that regulates on-field corruption, and concludes that it is a complex web of law, since sports governing bodies now share with the state many aspects of the sanctioning of on-field corruption. The paper considers how the doctrine of ‘the autonomy of sport’ has informed the development of lex sportiva in regard to athlete corruption, and the competing claims of private sports law and national legal systems over the regulation of athlete corruption

’Team GB’ and London 2012: The Paradox of National and Global Identities

This article explores the problems associated with ’national identity’ in the UK and examines the tensions arising between the international and local dimensions of the games through examples of domestic (UK) and international (Brazil, Chicago) media coverage of the key debates relating to London’s period of preparation. The chapter proposes a conception of London 2012 as exemplar of an event poised to generate insights and experiences connected to a new politics of ’cosmopolitan’ identity; insights central to grasping the cultural politics of contemporary urban development-and the paradoxes of national identity in current discourses of Olympism. Properly speaking, cosmopolitanism suits those people who have no country, while internationalism should be the state of mind of those who love their country above all, who seek to draw to it the friendship of foreigners by professing for the countries of those foreigners an intelligent and enlightened sympathy. © 2010 Taylor & Francis

Who Is Taking Part? Political Subjectivity in Glasgow's Commonwealth Games

This paper examines the problems of locating political subjectivity in the midst of the Glasgow Commonwealth Games of 2014 and takes as its starting point Ranciere’s contention that politics cannot be defined on the basis of any pre-existing subject. The Commonwealth Games, as both policy vehicle and a form of knowing the world, constructs subjects through the invocation of ‘legacy’. This involves assuming a consensual populism within which social problems are identified and rectified through the eventfulness of the event. However, leading on from Ranciere’s contention above, this paper suggests a critical perspective where the event itself is de-centred in order to move beyond the citational response to mega-events: that policy constructs subjugated subjects. The paper proceeds by examining how the logics of local residents of East Glasgow elude subjugation in their encounters with the official discourses of the mega-event. It outlines the ways that political subjectivity is brought forth in two discursive spaces: first, within Games Legacy Evaluation Reports. Second, a public meeting organised by Glasgow City Council as part of their Get Ready Glasgow series. These spaces are considered alongside recent academic criticism that focuses on the corrective elements of social policy relating to sporting mega events. Key words: post politics, Ranciere, performativity, sports mega-event, Commonwealth Game

Score a goal for climate: Assessing the carbon footprint of travel patterns of the English Premier League clubs

Football is the most popular sport, globally and in the United Kingdom. However it generates a range of negative environmental impacts, such as climate change, due to an extensive amount of travel involved. The growing contribution of football clubs to the global carbon footprint has been recognised, but never consistently assessed. This study assesses the carbon footprint of the English Premier League (EPL)clubs, using the patterns of their domestic travel in the 2016/2017 season as a proxy for analysis. The study shows that, within the 2016/17 season, the EPL clubs produced circa 1134 tonnes of CO 2- eq. as a result of their travel, where transportation accounts for 61% of the carbon footprint. To reduce this carbon footprint, a careful review of the current corporate travel and procurement practices in the EPL clubs is necessary. This is in order to optimise the travel itineraries, prioritise more climate-benign modes of transport and contract budget accommodation providers with the ‘green’ credentials