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To examine prevalence of verbal, physical, and sexual abuses in young elite athletes, a cross sectional questionnaire-based survey was conducted during the World Athletics under 20 World Championships. This questionnaire aimed at distinguishing between abuses perpetrated in the context of Athletics from those which were unrelated to Athletics. Four hundred and eighty athletes (52.3%, male) from North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania took part in the electronic anonymous survey. Outside Athletics setting, no gender difference was found for the prevalence of verbal, physical, and sexual abuses. However, 45 males (18% of the male population) and 34 females (15% of the female population) athletes reported sexual abuse. Asian athletes reported a slightly higher rate of sexual abuse; three quarters of them being non-touching abuses. Inside Athletics setting, no gender difference was found for the prevalence of verbal, physical, and non-touching sexual abuses. However, 58 males (23%) and 47 females (21%) reported verbal abuses. Thirty-one males (12%) and 20 females (9%) reported physical abuses, whereas 30 males (12%) and 17 females (7%) reported sexual abuses. Physical abuses were slightly more frequent in Asia and in Africa and less frequent in South America. Sexual abuses inside Athletics also differed over regions, and were unexpectedly twice more frequent than expected in Asia and slightly less frequent than expected in Europe. Friends and partners were identified as the more frequent (>50%) abusers outside or inside the Athletics settings, whereas outside Athletics and inside Athletics, coaches were identified as sexual abuse perpetrators in 8 and 25% of cases, respectively. The prevalence of verbal, physical, or sexual abuses is high but consistent with what has been reported in United Kingdom, Norway, Canada, and Sweden at national level in recreational or elite athletes. Sexual abuse, including touching or penetrative abuses, occurred significantly more often in male athletes when compared to female athletes. This finding invites healthcare and social workers, and policymakers to also consider the risk of sexual abuse of young male athletes in Athletics. These results also call for longitudinal studies on young elite athletes., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Bermon, Adami, Dahlström, Fagher, Hautala, Ek, Anderson, Jacobsson, Svedin and Timpka.)

The influence of advanced footwear technology (thickness of light midsole foam and rigid plate) on distance running performances was analyzed during an 8-year period. Analysis of variance was used to measure effects of time, gender, shoe technology, and East African origin on male and female top 20 or top 100 seasonal best times in 10-kilometer races, half-marathons, and marathons. In both genders and three distance-running events, seasonal best times significantly decreased from 2017, which coincided with the introduction of the advanced footwear technology in distance running. This performance improvement was of similar magnitude in both East African and non-East African elite runners. In female elite athletes, the magnitudes (from 1.7 to 2.3%) of the decrease in seasonal best times between 2016 and 2019 were significantly higher than in their male counterparts (from 0.6 to 1.5%). Analyses of variance confirmed that the adoption of the advanced footwear technology significantly improved the top 20 seasonal best times in female half marathons and marathons and male marathons, with the improvements being more pronounced in females and in long-distance running events. The adoption of this new shoe technology improved female marathon time by ~2 min and 10 s, which represents a significant increase in performance (1.7%)., Competing Interests: AS and IB were employed by the company Elite Ltd, Budapest. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2021 Bermon, Garrandes, Szabo, Berkovics and Adami.)

The Doha 2019 IAAF World Championships represent a challenge for athletes, workforce and spectators who could compete, work or attend under likely extreme meteorological conditions. This short article summarizes the methodology used by the IAAF and the Local Organizing Committee doctors to analyze and reduce risks, while complying as much as possible with existing recommendations or policies. The main steps to be completed are identification and description of weather-related risks, description and whenever possible testing of all their possible mitigation measures during test events, revision of these risks once mitigation implemented, and finally drafting a contingency plan for remaining exceptional and impactful occurrences. Such risk management methodology could apply to other sports, ideally from the host city selection to the delivery of the competitive event., (Copyright © 2019 Bermon and Adami.)