The 2024 Paris Olympics has debuted the urban dance style of ‘breaking’, and athletes scaled new heights during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics with the addition of seven new sports, including karate and climbing. But while overall injuries at the Tokyo Olympics remained comparable to previous games, researchers found some of the new sports contributed a disproportionately large portion of them.
To safeguard athletes’ wellbeing, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) audits injuries and illnesses at each Olympics. Their report published in 2022 describes the incidence of these during the Tokyo Games. 11,315 athletes from 206 National Olympic Committees participated in the Tokyo Summer Olympics during 23 July to 8 August 2021, and their medical teams reported a total of 1035 injuries and 438 illnesses across the 17 days. This averaged to around nine injuries and four illnesses per 100 athletes. While COVID-19 impacted 18 athletes (less than 0.2 percent), there were fewer illnesses overall than previous years.
The overall injury rate of 9 percent was similar to that of previous games, but the highest incidence of injury happened during boxing (27 percent) along with the new sports of BMX racing (27 percent), BMX freestyle (22 percent), skateboarding (21 percent) and karate (19 percent). Researchers note that there could be many reasons why athletes competing in the new sports ended up with more injuries, such as weather conditions, venue, track or equipment design, and awareness and adherence to injury prevention training.
Heat illnesses also impacted 78 athletes, which isn’t surprising given the high temperatures and humidity during the Tokyo Olympics. The cases were relatively mild due to mitigation efforts, including recommendations for training in similar conditions leading up to the games and provisions such as hydration and shade during the events and ice baths after. The researchers recommended that future games be held in cooler environments to reduce the need for exertional heat illness countermeasures.
The introduction of new sports at the Tokyo Olympics brought new challenges in terms of athlete injuries and illnesses. It is crucial for sports governing bodies to use data from these events to reduce the risk in future competitions and ensure the safety and wellbeing of all athletes. Ongoing monitoring of injuries and illnesses, as well as implementing appropriate preventive measures, is essential to create a safe and conducive environment for athletes to perform at their best.
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