Participating in an Olympiad is the dream of any athlete. The long days of hard training, the very strict diet and discipline make sense when they meet the best in the world in a historic appointment. So when the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus forced the Tokyo Games to be postponed last year, it was a blow to the thousands of participants. Twelve months later, from July 23 to August 8, 2021, the Japanese capital is again ready to celebrate them, among numerous measures that will try to prevent the spread of covid-19.
Although athletes have had one more year to prepare, some come to competition after overcoming serious injuries . Beyond avoiding the coronavirus, they will face possible fractures, sprains, trauma, dislocations and infections that vary depending on each discipline. Swimmers, for example, cover a daily average of 6,000 to 10,000 meters for six days a week and almost eleven months a year, so they tend to suffer overuse injuries. As indicated by the Royal Spanish Swimming Federation, women have a higher incidence of these problems, and if we differentiate by body parts, the upper limbs (arms and hands) suffer three times as much damage as the lower limbs (legs and feet).
In the case of athletics, muscle injuries account for 40% of the total. Depending on the test performed, muscle damage varies somewhat. “In a marathoner, breakage is rarer and contracture is more common. In sprinters it is the other way around, acute injuries tend to be more; They hurt the same muscles, but in a different way ”, explains Christophe Ramírez, director of the medical services of the Royal Spanish Athletics Federation.
Can these injuries be prevented? Ángel Basas, head of Physiotherapy of the Royal Spanish Athletics and Gymnastics Federation, has treated athletes participating in seven Olympics, and states that “the guarantee of one hundred percent prevention does not exist at the high competitive level .” But he adds that proper load management minimizes risk, and that the key is to adapt the athlete’s physical structure to the cause of the injury, reinforcing it, instead of abusing relaxing techniques such as massages. “There will be phases where we need to remove excessive stress, but if we go overboard with that, the structure will suffer a lot.” Bodybuilding exercise and training organization, with clear communication between coaches, doctors and physical therapists, is essential to prevent injuries. In the case of athletics, Ramírez says that they always work at the limit to try to get athletes to their maximum without suffering mishaps.
In addition, athletes are exposed to diseases related to long-distance travel, such as diarrhea or viral infections . Jet lag also works against you. According to research published in the British Medical Journal and done with elite rugby players, they had a higher incidence of ailments when traveling to a foreign country with a time difference of more than five hours. In the case of Tokyo, many athletes are located at greater distances. You also have to take into account the climate of the Japanese capital. During the months of July and August, the maximum temperatures are close to 30 ºC and the minimum temperatures of 22 ºC, with high relative humidity (up to 77%), which could be a problem for those who are not used to these conditions.
Apart from covid-19, the contagion of other diseases also worries doctors and coaches, especially in contact sports such as wrestling. “The key is to identify infected athletes as soon as possible and administer the appropriate treatment to limit the spread from one to another,” recommends Andrew Peterson, director of Primary Care Sports Medicine at the University of Iowa (USA).
