While millions worldwide turned their attention to the incredible feats of elite athletes on show at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics, behind-the-scenes academic research that supports Olympian efforts and the rules and regulations imposed by the global sporting bodies and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) was also being tested.
This global research enables sport-associated researchers to demonstrate the real-life impacts and relevance of their academic endeavours. In our higher education age, with research impact an important factor for assessment and funding, research is showcased as an integral part of the Olympics.
As a sports physiologist dedicated to researching the importance of lifestyle and genetics for human health and performance, I view the Olympics not only as a showcase of elite athleticism; they are also an opportunity for university researchers like myself to understand elite performance, the challenges and risks these athletes face, broader applications of these findings, and how research can inform global decision-makers as they strive to make the world’s greatest sporting event the fairest.
I have been described as a ‘classic scientist’ with research that spans the causes of childhood obesity to what it takes to make a world-class athlete. The foundations of my research have taken me in related yet diverse directions, reflecting the curiosity that characterises academic efforts and a strong commitment to our communities.
It is this same drive for knowledge and the sharing of knowledge that saw Hong Kong Baptist University host two well-attended panel discussions during the first Olympic week on Enhancing Life Outside Sport for Olympians and Elite Athletes and Science, Technology AI and Sport.
I was joined by our president and vice-chancellor, Professor Alexander Ping-kong Wai, fellow academics and members of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the World Olympians Association and the IOC Athletes Commission.
The scale and complexity of sports research mirrors the sporting world itself. It reaches into the laboratory with the application of ‘omics’ – that is, genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics, and proteomics. Beyond the university campus, researchers work closely with athletes at local, regional, national, and global sporting events and inform international sporting organisations.
Real-time body temperature monitoring
Academics across all disciplines are responding to the impacts of climate change, one of the greatest challenges of our time, as highlighted by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
For Hong Kong Baptist University’s sports and wellness researchers and their partners, one area of research focus is the impacts of extreme temperatures on summer athletes.
The last summer Olympics in Tokyo was the hottest on record, and there is speculation that the Paris Olympics could be even hotter. Paris is considered a heat island and a risky environment for competitors, who could collapse or suffer heat illness or heat stroke.
In research to date, the internal body temperatures of some athletes have exceeded 41 degrees Celsius, which is dangerous and can lead to organ malfunction and even failure.
We worked with Paris Olympic competitors to ‘keep track to stay safe’ with live-transmitting technology that allows the tracking of multidisciplinary data within a single application.
This innovation system uses an electronic pill and smart wristband to provide live feedback on land and air temperature, heart rate, and a range of physiological and biomechanical parameters facilitated through a single, cloud-based portal database.
This allows instant access to crucial data on any internet-enabled or cellular device anywhere and enables support teams to respond quickly to dangers.
Yet, despite the benefits of these real-time sensors, well-founded concerns still need to be addressed related to validity testing, data privacy, and information overload. As these sensors are integrated into elite sports, researchers have moral and ethical responsibilities to examine their innovations, applications, value, and risks.
The heat issue goes beyond athletes and their support teams. On the eve of the Paris Olympics, further research found that heat policies developed by International Federations to protect athletes’ health from the danger of heat are patchy while at the same time using inappropriate indices.
This research proposes a categorisation of sports’ heat stress risk and the use of thermal indices. It serves as an acute reminder to the International Olympic Committee and International Federations of their responsibilities to athletes in today’s overheating world.
Applications
Knowledge acquired through our research with elite athletes has broader applications. Just as car manufacturers have explored revolutionary innovations with Formula One and then introduced them to commuter vehicles, so we expect to take our research findings on heat stroke in elite athletes to people working in challenging environments.
Equally, remote monitoring technology frameworks developed in sports have the potential to be applied in public health settings and by first responders and the military.
Informing decision-makers
Over the 128 years of the modern Olympics, the summer Olympics have reflected the world at four-year intervals. Geopolitics, war, racial politics, and social change, including evolving sporting codes, have found a stage at the Olympics.
Doping continues to cast a shadow over the Olympics while navigating contemporary gender issues is a new and challenging frontier for the IOC. My research priorities extend to the detection of drugs in sport with particular reference to recombinant human erythropoietin (rHuEpo), blood doping and testosterone.
Doping
It is a bitter reality of elite sports that doping remains a persistent problem despite decades of effort and bold promises to control it and clean up sport. The athlete’s biological passport is no longer enough. Fortunately, research advances over the past few years now holds the key to a dope-free future.
A transcriptomic test that can detect blood doping (rHuEpo abuse) has been researched for decades. We are now closer than ever before to a new and more powerful anti-doping test, aided significantly by the advent of artificial intelligence (AI) and its ability to review substantial transcriptomic test data outputs quickly and effectively and reveal doping predictions.
Transdisciplinary research approaches will be required to deliver this – the future rests with sports scientists, bioinformaticians, anti-doping organisations, and regulators all working together in a concerted fashion.
Transgender female athletes
The Tokyo Olympics in 2020 saw the first transgender and intersex athletes compete in the games’ history. Just months later, the IOC announced a new non-legally binding framework for transgender and intersex athletes with principles founded on human rights.
The IOC’s Medical and Scientific Research Fund then financed research that examined transgender female athletes and compared them with transgender men and cisgender athletes.
I led this research with colleagues from the University of Brighton and School of Applied Sciences in the UK, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK, the Universidad San Jorge, Spain, and the University of Rome Foro Italico, Italy, with our first findings published earlier this year in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
Our research found that trans women are not the same as biological men and may even be at a physical disadvantage to biological female athletes. Further, we warned against “precautionary bans and sport eligibility exclusions” not based on sport-specific research.
Once again, university research into a critical social issue of our time was thrust into a contemporary and politically charged controversy. The research findings were so challenging for some that they defaulted to abuse, harassment, and threats, further reminding researchers of the challenges they face in today’s polarised society.
Science informs best sports practice. It has fuelled sporting achievement while exposing issues, risks, and evidence to inform solutions. This intense connection between research and elite sport is a high-profile example of what research can achieve and its contemporary impacts.
Professor Yannis Pitsiladis is based at the Academy of Wellness and Human Development, Hong Kong Baptist University. He is a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Medical and Scientific Commission, a member of the executive committee and chair of the Scientific Commission of the International Sports Medicine Federation, a member of the Scientific and Education Commission of the European Federation of Sports Medicine Associations, a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Health Medical Research Committee, a past member of WADA’s List Expert Group and a fellow of the American College of Sports Medicine. Pitsiladis’ recent research is funded by WADA and the IOC.
Originally published in University World News
