Sport

Study on Special Olympics’ Unified Sports explores experiences of students and coaches

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 25 Apr 2023 17:26:23 +0000

Study on Special Olympics’ Unified Sports explores experiences of students and coaches

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 04/25/2023 - 13:26

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Unified Sports offer students with and without intellectual disabilities the opportunity to play together on the same teams (photo courtesy Pasco County Schools CC BY-NC 2.0)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Research & Innovation

Sport

Researchers from the University of Toronto’ Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) collaborated with Special Olympics Ontario to explore perceptions of inclusion among students and coaches in school-based Unified Sports programs.

Unified Sports are sport programs that offer opportunities for students with and without intellectual disabilities to participate on sports teams together.

Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos (photo courtesy of KPE)

“The intent of Unified Sports is to provide an inclusive experience by bringing together students with and without intellectual disabilities, but are these experiences truly inclusive and what does inclusion look and feel like in these sport programs?” says Kelly Arbour-Nicitopoulos, an associate professor at KPE and principal investigator of the study. “If the students’ experiences are not fully inclusive, then how can inclusion be better fostered?

“We explored these questions with some of the athletes and coaches who were participating at the inaugural Invitational Youth Games in May 2019 in Toronto, some of which were hosted at U of T.”

The study, recently published in Adapted Physical Activity Quarterly, found that students’ and coaches’ beliefs and attitudes towards Unified Sports played a key role in the implementation of the sport programming in schools. The coaches specifically influenced the inclusive nature of the teams based on their own understanding and beliefs around inclusion such as what roles the students without disabilities have in Unified Sports.

“Which of the student athletes do the coaches select to take on a leadership role and how exactly are these decisions made?” says Roxy O’Rourke, a PhD candidate in Arbour-Nicitopoulos’s ADAPT lab for accessible and inclusive physical activity and first author of the paper. ”Are all students provided with the opportunity to play to the best of their abilities on the same team regardless of their experience with disability or not?”

The researchers found that students with and without intellectual disabilities, as well as the coaches, value the inclusive nature of Unified Sports – in particular, how an inclusive sport program model implemented within the school system can translate to more inclusive practices and behaviours outside of the sport setting. That includes encouraging student groups to mingle at lunchtime and in hallways during breaks.

“Increased social participation positively impacts the well-being of all students,” Arbour-Nicitopoulos says.

The findings also highlight the areas for growth and the influential role of coaches, as well as teammates, on sports teams.

“If the idea is to have consistent implementation of programming, then there needs to be more evidence-based educational resources outlining these expectations and how to lead and develop Unified Sports programs within the school setting,” says Arbour-Nicitopoulos.

“Some of the language and practices used by participants highlight the need to focus on language choice within the sport environment, and to clearly establish the roles and responsibilities of all athletes and students engaged in the Unified Sports environment.”

The researchers suggest future studies should explore training for coaches on inclusive practices – for example, language used in the sports environment when working with individuals with and without disabilities.

This study was funded by a grant from Special Olympics Canada and co-authored by Krystn Orr, a PhD graduate from the ADAPT lab, Rebecca Renwick, a professor in the department of occupational science and occupational therapy in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, Virginia Wright, a registered physiotherapist and senior scientist in the Bloorview Research Institute (BRI) and professor in the department of physical therapy and rehabilitation sciences institute in the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, James Noronha, a senior consultant at Special Olympics Ontario, and Kirsten Bobbie, manager of games and competitions at Special Olympics Canada.

U of T study explores the experiences of girls who play on mixed sports teams

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 29 Mar 2023 15:54:22 +0000

U of T study explores the experiences of girls who play on mixed sports teams

Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 03/29/2023 - 11:54

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(photo by Maskot/Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Breaking Research

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Research & Innovation

Sport

Young people who compete in sports are often organized into single-sex teams that compete separately. But what happens when youth have the opportunity to compete together?

A group of researchers from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) set out to find out whether mixed teams provide girls with more opportunities to advance and compete in sports – and if they help dispel stereotypes and contribute to mutually respectful relationships.

In a paper published in the journal Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health, researchers Melissa L. deJonge, Madison F. Vani and Karly Zammit worked with Professor Catherine Sabiston to explore young adult women’s retrospective experiences of playing on boys’ sports teams as adolescents.

“We don’t know much about what happens when girls choose or need to play on boys’ sport teams, which is often the case in rural and remote communities where there are not enough kids to make up separate teams,” says deJonge, a PhD student at KPE. “The key focus of this study was to explore these experiences, with a special focus on how the sociocultural environment may benefit or limit the sport experience and participation among adolescent girl athletes.”

Eleven women in their 20s who played on boys’ sports teams as adolescents were asked to reflect on their experiences. Their reflections show they perceived boys’ sport environments to be superior in terms of opportunities for competition, skill development and advancement in sport. They also described having to overcome assumptions about girls’ inferiority in sport that limited their inclusion in the boys’ sport environment as adolescents.

“While it is possible that these findings reflect societal beliefs of boys’ superiority in sport, the results may also highlight inequitable opportunities for girls’ achievement and development in sport,” says Vani, a post-doctoral researcher and sessional instructor at the faculty. “The women’s accounts provide important implications for targeting the ways sexed and gendered expectations and norms promote sport for boys while ‘othering’ the athletic girl.”

Some of the study participants recalled engaging in behaviours that distanced themselves from their femininity.

“For example, some women described dressing to cover their body, not wearing makeup or nail polish and hiding their hair length,” says Zammit, who completed a bachelor of kinesiology at U of T.

The results of the study highlight the complexities of navigating sex and gender in sport, and the unique challenges associated with adolescent girls competing on boys’ sports teams, says Sabiston, who is a Canada Research Chair in Physical Activity and Mental Health and director of KPE’s Mental Health and Physical Activity Research Centre.

“While sex-integrated sport contexts have been suggested as an avenue to encourage gender equity and inclusion in sport, further efforts in research and practice are needed to disrupt prevailing stereotypes that are limiting equitable play and opportunities for girls, particularly when competing with boys,” she says.

The researchers say that could include employing gender and sex inclusive behaviour and communication strategies that reduce gender-based and body-objectifying commentary, enhancing the representation of women in leadership and coaching positions, and supporting the development of safe and inclusive sport environments.

“Disrupting deep-rooted assumptions of girls’ inferiority in sport requires developing and implementing strategies that target individuals – like the coaches, parents or spectators – and a systems level approach that will address issues such as increasing resources allocated to women’s and girl’s sport to improve girls’ inclusion in male-dominated sports contexts,” Sabiston says.

This study was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Joe’s Basketball Diaries Episode 5: Globalization and the power of sport

Christopher.Sorensen — Wed, 18 Jan 2023 14:13:37 +0000

Joe’s Basketball Diaries Episode 5: Globalization and the power of sport Christopher.Sorensen Wed, 01/18/2023 - 09:13

Topic

City & Culture

Joe's Basketball Diaries

The power of sport – and who holds it – takes centre court in the latest episode of Joe’s Basketball Diaries, hosted by Joseph Wong, the University of Toronto’s vice-president, international.

Guests include Raptors head coach Nick Nurse, who shares his insights into the role coaches and teachers play in fostering the growth of players and students both on and off the court.

“I start every season with either this mural, this pyramid or this coliseum of our thoughts, ideas and our vision for the season,” says Nurse. “One thing right at the top is being world leaders for cultural change.”

The conversation also touches on questions about leadership, women, economics and globalization in the sporting world – and the role of sports organizations, governments, athletes and fans when it comes to making a positive impact beyond stadiums and arenas.

“It’s incredibly unfair to ask athletes to solve problems that governments aren’t themselves prepared to solve or are unable to,” says David Shoemaker, chief executive officer and secretary general of the Canadian Olympic Committee.

“I get that, but athletes have extraordinary power as well,” Wong says, while Fitriya Mohamed, the co-founder of the Muslim Women’s Summer Basketball League, notes that many athletes are aware of their power, but wary of getting too involved. “Once they tweet out something, they have to literally be the expert in that thing – so, in every press conference [they get asked about it],” she says.

This episode features:

Vivek Jacob, reporter at Raptors.com
Fitriya Mohamed, co-founder of the Muslim Women’s Summer Basketball League
Nick Nurse, Raptors head coach and founder of the Nick Nurse Foundation
Ansh Sanyal, senior director of brand and marketing, Canadian Elite Basketball League
David Shoemaker, chief executive officer and secretary general, Canadian Olympic Committee

Watch Joe’s Basketball Diaries Ep. 5

Can restricting blood flow to athletes' limbs while training boost performance? U of T researchers investigate

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 15 Dec 2022 17:58:12 +0000

Can restricting blood flow to athletes' limbs while training boost performance? U of T researchers investigate

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/15/2022 - 12:58

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Liam O'Brien, left, works with study participant to see if restricting blood flow to the arms can boost athlete performance (photo by Ira Jacobs)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Research and Innovation

Sport

Ischemic preconditioning (IPC), a technique used to prepare an organ or tissue for a lack of blood or oxygen supply, was originally developed for use in clinical settings where there is an expected lack of blood and oxygen supply, for example during surgery or after an adverse event like a heart attack.

But could it be used to enhance athletic performance?

“IPC has been shown to have a protective effect on the body’s tissues to subsequent ischemic episodes – events where there is inadequate blood supply and, therefore, oxygen supply to a tissue or organ – that would typically cause cellular damage,” says Liam O’Brien, a first year PhD student at the University of Toronto Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE).

“So, when exercise researchers caught wind of it, they theorized it may be useful for enhancing exercise performance, seeing how our capacity to exercise is limited in part by the inability to deliver enough oxygen to the working muscles.”

The technique involves inflating blood pressure cuffs around one or multiple limbs at pressures that completely stop the flow of blood into or out of the limbs. The cuffs remain inflated for a brief period of about five minutes before being released for about five minutes, allowing for normal blood flow to resume through the limb. The process is repeated three to four times.

Researchers have speculated that if IPC improves the muscle’s ability to tolerate lack of oxygen supply, then perhaps this feature could be beneficial for prolonging exercise performance.

“Several studies have shown IPC to improve exercise performance, but there is little evidence as to why,” says O’Brien, who explored the question in his master’s thesis. “I wanted to fill in some of the gaps.”

While most of the studies had measured the effects of IPC on lower body exercises such as running or cycling, O’Brien was interested in investigating the effects of IPC on arm cycling exercise. He was also curious to see whether it might be useful for supramaximal intensity exercise – where the participants exercise as hard as they possibly can for the entirety of the test as opposed to pacing themselves.

“I theorized that if IPC works for upper body exercise, it may be useful for unique populations such as para-athletes or paddlers to help enhance their performance,” he says. “I was also interested in whether IPC was useful for supramaximal intensity exercise as most of the studies had investigated IPC during endurance exercises.”

O'Brien also wanted to investigate whether IPC works due to the placebo effect, a phenomenon whereby a treatment works due to the psychological expectations that it will work, as some researchers have speculated.

Working under the supervision of Professor Ira Jacobs, O’Brien recruited 18 athletic participants who completed three 45-second-long sprints using an arm cycle ergometer on separate visits to the lab. The first sprint served as a control trial, where the participants did not receive the IPC treatment, and instead lay passively for 30 minutes before exercise. During the other two visits, the participants completed their sprint after receiving either IPC (five minutes applied to both arms four times) or the placebo treatment. The placebo treatment consisted of the same protocol as the IPC trial, only at a low cuff pressure that did not interfere with their blood flow. The participants were told that the placebo treatment was also expected to enhance their performance through a similar mechanism to the high pressure treatment despite there being no actual benefit.

“We found that the average power outputs generated by the participants in our study were significantly higher after both the IPC and placebo treatments compared to the control trial,” says O’Brien. “However, the power outputs were not different between IPC and the placebo condition.”

While this result can be seen as an indication that IPC is in fact a placebo effect, O’Brien believes it is more likely that the changes in performance were due to the order that the participants completed the trials.

“Because the arm ergometer exercise was foreign to our participants, and the participants completed the control trial first, we believe that the second and third sprints were improved due to a learning effect rather than a performance enhancing effect of the IPC or placebo conditions,” he says. “This was supported through our statistical analyses as well as our lack of evidence of changes in the physiological variables such as oxygen consumption, heart rate, muscle blood flow or blood chemistry.”

While the study did not find clear evidence of a performance enhancing effect of IPC, these findings help to add information on the growing research area of ischemic preconditioning and exercise performance, says O’Brien.

“Research in this area has been active for over a decade, however much is still unknown about how IPC works in relation to exercise,” he says. “Our study is a small but important contribution toward building an improved understanding of the nuances of how IPC influences exercise performance.

“In the end, we hope to help illuminate the effects that this treatment has on exercise to help support athletes of all capabilities to achieve their full potential.”

Joe's Basketball Diaries Episode 3: The model minority

lanthierj — Wed, 14 Dec 2022 16:42:40 +0000

Joe's Basketball Diaries Episode 3: The model minority lanthierj Wed, 12/14/2022 - 11:42

Topic

City & Culture

Anti-Asian Racism

Anti-Black Racism

Joe's Basketball Diaries

Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Sport

Anti-Asian and anti-Black racism. Tokenism, xenophobia and a lack of representation in sport. These are some of the topics host Joseph Wong, the University of Toronto’s vice-president, international, explores in episode three of Joe’s Basketball Diaries.

“I was called Yao Ming my whole life growing up, and I just wanted to be Jeremy Lin,” says basketball star Jeremy Lin.

Wong, who has written about the personal impact of anti-Asian racism, is joined by athletes, scholars, actors, journalists and activists who share their experiences and insights and discuss their work to ensure sports are accessible to everyone – and why it’s important to have hope.

“For me for, you know, child of an immigrant family, I grew up feeling like I didn't quite belong as well… I'm very honoured to be playing a part in that conversation now,” says actor Simu Liu. “And hopefully, you know, also in a way that holds the door open for, for others.”

The episode features:

Wesley Cheng, content creator of On-Air, TSN (The Sports Network)
Clement Chu, president and founder of the Chinese Canadian Youth Athletics Association
Takashi Fujitani, director of the Dr. David Chu program in Asia-Pacific studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy
Janelle Joseph, assistant professor at U of T’s Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, who focuses on critical studies of race & indigeneity;
Jeremy Lin, player for the Guangzhou Loong Lions of the Chinese Basketball Association 
Simu Liu, Canadian actor

Watch Joe’s Basketball Diaries Ep. 3

Pianos, exercise bikes and more: Inside the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education research labs

Christopher.Sorensen — Thu, 08 Dec 2022 15:29:56 +0000

Pianos, exercise bikes and more: Inside the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education research labs

Christopher.Sorensen Thu, 12/08/2022 - 10:29

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Julia Tom is a professional cellist and a doctoral student of the TEMPO lab, exploring fine motor skills and ways to enhance them (photo by Dewey Chang)

Topic

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Goldring Centre

Research & Innovation

Sport

A shiny black piano may not be the kind of instrument visitors would expect to find in a research lab at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education (KPE) but that is exactly what they would discover – along with a transcranial direct current stimulation device and an exercise bike.

The faculty's Training and Enhancing Motor Performance Outcomes (TEMPO) lab is is where Joyce Chen, assistant professor of motor learning, and her team of graduate students study how factors such as aerobic exercise, non-invasive brain stimulation – and music – can enhance a person’s ability to learn motor skills, from putting the golf ball to using their upper limbs again after a stroke.

“My research aims to discover the limits of the brain’s plasticity, its ability to change as we learn,” says Chen. “Using fundamental and applied research approaches, we want to understand how far we can push motor performance in a musician or athlete, and find ways to enhance the brain's plasticity so that people with stroke can improve their capacity to move.”

Chen’s lab was one of many on display during a recent KPE lab tour organized by the faculty to showcase some of the new and renovated research spaces at the Warren Stevens Building (Athletic Centre) and the Goldring Centre for High Performance on the St. George campus, which house most of KPE’s research units, labs and centres.

A student in the Biomechanics of Orthopedics and Sport Medicine lab simulates a move that puts stress on the hips (photo by Dewey Chang)

Located in the lower levels of the Warren Stevens building is the Biomechanics of Orthopedics and Sport Medicine lab, run by Timothy Burkhart, an assistant professor of orthopaedic biomechanics at KPE, in conjunction with the orthopedic surgeons of the University of Toronto Orthopaedic Sports Medicine group. Here, athletes simulate game moves that put stress on the hips and knees. Motion-capture technology helps generate computer models that accurately estimate the forces on the hips and knees – a non-invasive way to retrieve data that used to require intramuscular probes. And a markerless motion-tracking system videotapes the athletes doing exactly what they would do in their natural environment, for example, playing a game of basketball on a court.

“The combination of the two techniques – capturing force and movement data in the lab and analyzing videotape of the players on court – produces an unprecedentedly granular level of analysis,” says Burkhart. “What we learn can help both athletes and the everyday healthy population that’s relatively active with injury prevention and rehabilitation.”

A study from Jacobs' lab looks at the performance enhancement effects of blood flow restriction of the limbs before commencing exercise aka ischemic pre-conditioning (photo by Ira Jacobs)

Just down the hall from Burkhart’s lab is the Human Physiology Lab where Ira Jacobs, professor of exercise physiology at KPE, and his team of graduate students are exploring therapeutic interventions, as well as training and physical activity recommendations for people across the human spectrum.

On one side of that spectrum are children with chronic disease. Jacobs and his team are studying the interaction between physical activity, nutrition, physiological function and disease severity in children with chronic disease with the overall goal of rapidly translating their research findings into patient care with new, disease-specific therapeutic interventions.

The lab’s high performance sport research program is designed to investigate the other end of the human condition.

“More specifically, we perform investigations on how the human body works at the limits of its capabilities and how we can push these limits using recovery strategies, nutritional supplementation, programming and testing,” says Jacobs, who is also interim director of the recently founded Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport (TISS). "These limits can be related to elite sport training and performance or to human performance in extreme conditions like altitude, heat and cold.”

Shared research space on the fourth floor of the Goldring Centre (photo by Dewey Chang)

Back at the Goldring Centre, Robert Bentley, assistant professor of cardiovascular physiology, is conducting research into how the heart and blood vessels function during exercise.

“I study the mechanisms of oxygen delivery during exercise and what that means not only for performance, but also for exercise tolerance,” he says. “My research spans the health spectrum, from basic science investigations in healthy populations to clinical investigations of patients with heart failure and pulmonary hypertension.”

One of the machines Bentley uses in his research is the stress echocardiography tilt-recline table ergometer, a specialized bicycle that allows study participants to exercise while the researchers manipulate them by tilting or reclining the bicycle as needed to obtain optimal images of the heart.

“This piece of equipment allows for cardiac imaging to be completed during exercise, which is pretty exceptional,” he says. “If you do not have this special bicycle, individuals often have to exercise on a treadmill or upright bicycle until some criteria is met and then quickly transition themselves onto a table upon which images of the heart can be obtained.”

Bentley’s Cardiovascular Exercise Physiology lab is housed on the fourth floor of the Goldring Centre, which has been significantly expanded in the recent renovation to provide individual labs and shared research space for a number of faculty.

A stress echocardiography tilt-recline table ergometer allows study participants to exercise while researchers tilt or recline the bicycle as needed to obtain optimal images of the heart (photo by Dewey Chang)

The Kirkham lab, led by Amy Kirkham, assistant professor of clinical cardiovascular health, uses advanced imaging and lifestyle interventions to understand, treat and improve the health of women with cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Michael Hutchison, associate professor of sport concussion and director of the concussion program at the MacIntosh Sport Medicine Clinic, specializes in sport-related concussion research in various populations, from adolescents to professional athletes.

Daniel Moore, associate professor of muscle physiology, studies the influence of exercise and nutrition on skeletal muscle remodeling and protein metabolism, while Jenna Gillen, assistant professor of exercise physiology, conducts research into how exercise and nutrition can alter carbohydrate and fat metabolism in humans.

Dean Gretchen Kerr, Assistant Professors Robert Bentley and Jenna Gillen, and Professor Ira Jacobs were on hand to cut the ribbon at the official unveiling of new and renovated research space at KPE (picture by Dewey Chang)

“We have so many great spaces now available to do in person research, including an exercise training suite for exercise interventions or training studies and an expanded wet lab that lets us look, on a cellular and molecular level, at how exercise - on its own or in combination with nutrition - influences aspects of metabolic health and physiology,” says Gillen.

A new, more spacious metabolic kitchen is also now available for careful preparation of diets and nutrition interventions for study participants, while blood samples and muscle biopsies are collected for analysis in the procedures room.

“With over 20 research labs housed under KPE, our experts are able to do cutting-edge research in various areas related to physical activity, health and their interactions,” says Professor Tim Welsh. The interim associate dean of research at KPE, Welsh is also head of the Action and Attention lab and studies the cognitive and neural mechanisms behind goal-directed actions of people from average and special populations.

“This tour offered a snapshot of some of the important and far-reaching work that gets done.”

Beyond the pitch: U of T's Simon Darnell on the controversies swirling around the World Cup in Qatar

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:21:36 +0000

Beyond the pitch: U of T's Simon Darnell on the controversies swirling around the World Cup in Qatar

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 11/21/2022 - 09:21

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(Photo by Catherine Ivill via Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Global

Sport

FIFA’s World Cup, the greatest show in soccer and one of the biggest sporting events on the planet, kicked off Sunday in Qatar.

Yet, before it even started, Qatar 2022 was engulfed by controversy, with human rights groups criticizing the country for its treatment of migrant workers – who built the infrastructure for the event – and laws prohibiting homosexuality.

Simon Darnell

Earlier this month, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino wrote to all competing nations asking them to “focus on football,” but that hasn’t stopped some teams, players, fans and human rights groups from speaking up.

Writer Jelena Damjanovic recently spoke with Simon Darnell, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) and director of the KPE Centre for Sport Policy Studies, about the tournament and the debates it has sparked in the sporting world and beyond.

Former FIFA president Sepp Blatter has said the Qatar World Cup was a mistake. What’s your take?

Blatter seemed to be basing that claim on Qatar being too small a country to host an event of this size, while also suggesting that the original process of awarding the World Cup to Qatar was compromised, which it surely was. I’m not so sure that Qatar is a mistake so much as [it is highlighting the] tensions, and even hypocrisies, of hosting sports mega-events, which are starker in this case. There are routinely human rights abuses when sports mega-events are staged, including the displacement of poor people or the repression of political activists. But in this case, the human rights abuses are clearer and harder to ignore.

Given all the controversary, how did FIFA decide to award Qatar with hosting rights for the World Cup this year?

There were clearly some backroom dealings that led to the awarding of this event to Qatar in 2010. There seems to be little doubt that bribery and other corrupt political machinations took place. And those that were responsible for that decision and benefited from it – like former FIFA president Blatter and former UEFA [Union of European Football Associations] President Michel Platini – are no longer in charge now that the actual event is being staged.

I also think it’s important here to acknowledge Qatar’s motivations. Hosting sports mega-events has long offered nation states a means of building an international reputation and securing some prestige on a global scale. In the case of Qatar, the stakes are even higher. The best analysis I have seen is that Qatar wanted the World Cup in order to increase its regional security, particularly as a small country with a small permanent population. If one looks at neighboring Yemen, which has been the site of a devastating and ongoing proxy war, it makes sense that Qatar looked to an association with the FIFA brand as a way to secure its geo-political standing. In other words, a country with the prestige of hosting a World Cup is a country that is less likely to be invaded. Such is the political significance of international sport and hosting sports mega-events.

What are your thoughts about the ideas of allowing more closed, authoritarian societies to host international sporting competitions in an effort to nudge them towards a democratic future?

I think there is more going on here than simply encouraging democracy. That said, I do think it’s possible that having the eyes of the world on a host nation can – at least in theory – encourage or stimulate democracy. The case of the 1988 Seoul Olympics is often put forward as an example. But recent examples are less encouraging. It’s hard to conclude that China (Beijing 2008, 2022) or Russia (Sochi 2010, World Cup 2018) are somehow more open and democratic having hosted sports mega-events. If anything, the opposite has happened.

Further, it doesn’t really seem like the organizing bodies of these events are interested in pursuing democracy in any meaningful way. The International Olympic Committee has made it difficult for athletes to speak out on political issues, for example. And, last week, current FIFA president Gianni Infantino called out European critics of Qatar’s human rights record for being hypocrites, which doesn’t indicate a strong human rights commitment on the part of FIFA.

I should add that I think Infantino is correct that the human rights record of many European countries is dubious, both historically and in relation to contemporary issues like the treatment of refugees and migrants. But using that to claim that there’s “nothing to see here” when it comes to the Qatar World Cup is unethical – and a bad look for FIFA.

Critics of Qatar have also focused on the environmental implications of the tournament. Can these mega sport events ever be environmentally (and economically) sustainable?

The environmental toll of hosting sports mega events is something we still don’t really want to confront. We still seem to be asking questions about whether this model of international sport is sustainable, or whether we can absorb or justify the environmental costs of hosting sports events like this. I think the questions need to change. Better questions would be: can we think of sport in a circular economy and what would this look like? And is there a role for sport in environmental regeneration? The answers to these questions are probably no if the current form of hosting the World Cup continues. So maybe the time is now for a new model of international football.

What role, if any, do teams and players have to draw attention to some of these issues?

There seems to be a growing desire on the part of the global soccer community to comment on the human rights issues associated with this World Cup, and to demonstrate some displeasure with it. I think this is significant. We haven’t seen national teams put forth unified political statements like this very often in recent years. But let’s keep it in perspective. The event is going ahead regardless of how many workers died and there is still an overall narrative that the athletes should be allowed to play regardless of the political issues and injustices going on around them. And if I was an athlete, I might feel the same way. But as a scholar and analyst, I do think we need to acknowledge that our love of sport still seems to make it possible for us to pay a big price – in human and environmental terms – in order to make sure that the games go ahead.

With Canada qualifying for the 2022 World Cup only for the second time in the nation’s history, Canadians will have an opportunity to cheer for Canada in addition to other nations. How might that impact the country?

We should remember that fan consumption of the World Cup is a big deal in Canada regardless of which teams qualify. So, it’s not like the Canadian team qualifying for the World Cup will somehow kick off interest in the sport in this country. Same on the participation side, where soccer is one of the strongest sports for youth participation. But that said, I do think it will be very interesting to have a team that might actually unify Canadian soccer fans – at least to a degree. And the racial and ethnic diversity of this team offers a chance, I would say, to celebrate the diversity that is contemporary Canada in a way that we aren’t usually offered by, for example, a Canadian hockey team.

U of T and Sinai Health announce new gift from Larry and Judy Tanenbaum to establish the Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport

Christopher.Sorensen — Tue, 31 May 2022 19:53:31 +0000

U of T and Sinai Health announce new gift from Larry and Judy Tanenbaum to establish the Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport

Christopher.Sorensen Tue, 05/31/2022 - 15:53

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Larry and Judy Tanenbaum and the Tanenbaum Family Foundation’s generous investment will lead to advances in the science and medicine of sport, improving health care for high-performance athletes in the GTA and beyond (photo by Shutterstock).

Advancement Staff

Topic

Our Community

Institutional Strategic Initiatives

Sinai Health

Temerty Faculty of Medicine

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Meric Gertler

Sport

Established through a generous $20-million gift from the Larry and Judy Tanenbaum Family Foundation, the Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport at the University of Toronto will be a global centre of excellence for high-performance sport science and sports medicine.

The Tanenbaum Institute will yield new knowledge at the intersection of research and practice, translating discoveries into innovations that dramatically impact health and performance across all athlete populations.

The Tanenbaum Institute will bring together the leading sport science research of U of T’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education, the sports medicine research expertise of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and the renowned clinical and research leadership of the Dovigi Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Clinic and the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute at Sinai Health.

“Today marks a monumental step forward in support of Canadian high-performance athletics, one that will lead to improved athlete performance, safety and well-being,” said U of T President Meric Gertler. “Thanks to the extraordinary generosity of Larry and Judy Tanenbaum, the Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport will become one of the world’s leading centres in the field. And the Institute will be truly unique, combining the strengths of U of T’s top-ranked research programs and sports medicine departments with leading clinical care centres at Sinai Health, all in the heart of one of the world’s most celebrated sporting cities.”

The Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport will transform athlete health and well-being

The Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sport will help model and predict athlete performance and improve health outcomes based on a wealth of data from across the Greater Toronto Area. This new knowledge will support high-performance athletes across a spectrum that includes world-class professional, non-professional and para athletes, including from diverse and underrepresented communities, as well as athletes striving for high-performance optimization in recreational sports.

The institute will catalyze U of T and Sinai Health’s sport science and sports medicine expertise, generating novel insights and innovative technologies and interventions that improve athlete performance, health, safety and well-being; reduce risk of injury; accelerate and optimize recovery and rehabilitation; and advance high-performance sport in a manner that is safe, welcoming, inclusive and accessible to all.

To this end, the Tanenbaum Institute will work in partnership with sports clinics, associations and organizations, including Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) and its teams: the Toronto Maple Leafs, Toronto Raptors, Toronto FC and the Toronto Argonauts, as well as the Toronto Marlies, Raptors 905 and TFC 2.

“I truly believe that sport unites us, inspires us, and offers all people a path toward becoming their best selves,” said Larry Tanenbaum, chairman of Tanenbaum Family Foundation and MLSE. “The Tanenbaum Institute will bring together sports medicine, sport science and data science to encourage athletic engagement, enhance performance and accelerate recovery and rehabilitation. I’m proud to join with U of T and Sinai Health in transforming athlete health and well-being.”

Support for innovative research in sports medicine

Larry and Judy Tanenbaum’s gift will be combined with more than $20 million in additional support from U of T and Sinai Health. This investment will establish a Directorship and Research Acceleration Fund to support bold, innovative research across the institute, the university, and Sinai Health; create a groundbreaking new Chair in Sport Science and Data Modelling, a Chair in Musculoskeletal Regenerative Medicine, and a Professorship in Orthopaedic Sports Medicine; and provide funding for a range of cutting-edge research, innovations and clinical programs.

“The Tanenbaum Institute will enjoy a remarkable head start, thanks to the amazing research and clinical sports medicine leadership we have amassed here at Sinai Health through the Dovigi Orthopaedic Sports Medicine Clinic and across U of T,” said Dr. Gary Newton, president and CEO of Sinai Health. “Establishing this landmark Institute is only the beginning. We look forward to transforming high-performance sport together with our many industry, government, and community partners.”

“The Tanenbaum Institute’s cutting-edge research will play a leading role in advancing high performance sport in a manner that is safe, welcoming, inclusive and accessible to all,” said Gretchen Kerr, dean of the Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education at U of T. “We are so excited to be joining in this important research enterprise by pooling together our academic research, large and diverse athlete base, and training facilities with the world-class clinicians of Sinai Health.”

“We’re incredibly excited by the potential for the Tanenbaum Institute to transform sports medicine across Canada and to train future generations of sport science and sports medicine leaders,” said Trevor Young, dean of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine at U of T. “By bringing together so many disciplines, the Tanenbaum Institute will make breakthrough big data-driven findings that will lead to better athlete health, safety and performance.”

The Institute combines a diverse array of sport science and sports medicine talent. The Institute’s research and clinical foci will include mild traumatic brain injuries, orthopaedics, regenerative medicine, biomechanics, wearable physiological and training monitoring technologies, technologies in parasport, mathematical and statistical modelling applied to individual athlete and team analytics, nutrition, individual and team psychology and health, exercise physiology and more.

An impressive philanthropic legacy

This latest gift from the Tanenbaum Family Foundation builds on an impressive philanthropic legacy at U of T, Sinai Health and beyond. Larry and Judy Tanenbaum and the Tanenbaum family have been long-time supporters of U of T. In 2014, they helped establish the Anne Tanenbaum Centre for Jewish Studies at the Faculty of Arts & Science, one of North America’s leading programs of its kind. They also have also established several scholarships in support of student athletes.

At Sinai Health, Larry and Judy Tanenbaum have made several transformative investments. In 2013, the Tanenbaums gave $35 million to rename the Lunenfeld-Tanenbaum Research Institute (LTRI), accelerating Sinai Health’s biomedical research institute.

Larry and Judy Tanenbaum have also made major gifts in support of cutting-edge physical and mental health research across Canada. Their generosity led to the creation of the Tanenbaum Open Science Initiative at McGill University and the Tanenbaum Centre for Pharmacogenetics at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health.

With new documentary, U of T alumna – and former Olympian – explores how women are defined in sport

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 09 May 2022 15:32:21 +0000

With new documentary, U of T alumna – and former Olympian – explores how women are defined in sport

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/09/2022 - 11:32

Cutline

A still shot from Category: Woman, a documentary by Phyllis Ellis, a Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education alumna, filmmaker and former Olympian.

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Our Community

Alumni

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Film

Sport

Women

Phyllis Ellis sees a lot of similarities between making a film and succeeding in sport.

“The hours and hours and hours of preparation. The sort of monomaniacal focus. The idea that you can never give up. Fighting to the finish … There’s a total commitment, and also a lot of learning that happens from both successes and failures,” says Ellis, an alumna of the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education.

Ellis represented Canada in the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, where she played for the Canadian field hockey team, before embarking on a career of filmmaking, acting and producing. Her latest work – Category: Woman – recently screened at the 2022 Hot Docs Canadian International Film Festival. It focuses on four athletes from the Global South who were forced out of competition by regulations that deem women with naturally high androgen levels to have a performance advantage. The International Amateur Athletics Federation (now World Athletics) ruled that in order to compete, these female athletes must medically alter their healthy bodies.

The regulations came at the heels of Caster Semenya bursting onto the world stage in 2009. The South African runner’s results were overshadowed by doubt and her personal medical records leaked to international media.

Phyllis Ellis playing for Team Canada during the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles (photo courtesy of Ellis)

Ellis says she was drawn to the story after meeting some of the athletes and Payoshni Mitra, an activist who has been advocating on their behalf.

“The policing of women's bodies in sport is an ongoing issue that continues under the guise of fair play,” says Ellis. “I hope viewers of our documentary will walk away from the movie with an understanding that inclusion, prevention of harm, nondiscrimination and primacy of bodily autonomy is what a level playing field actually is.”

Ellis says her experience as an Olympian came in handy when she decided to devote herself to making documentaries.

“As a filmmaker, I have always been drawn to social and political issues that centre on the experiences of women,” says Ellis, whose feature documentary Toxic Beauty was nominated for the 2021 International Emmys and won best direction and best writing at the Canadian Screen Awards (CSA).

“But I always thought I’d come back to sport in my work in film.”

She adds that her experience as an athlete and an Olympian was a formative one.

“Being an athlete and representing Canada was a wonderful experience in more ways than not. I learned a lot and although I didn't know it at the time, I have carried the good and the tough times forward and I'm thankful for that.”

The politics of sport: U of T's Simon Darnell on Wimbledon's ban of Russian and Belarusian players

Christopher.Sorensen — Mon, 02 May 2022 13:29:21 +0000

The politics of sport: U of T's Simon Darnell on Wimbledon's ban of Russian and Belarusian players

Christopher.Sorensen Mon, 05/02/2022 - 09:29

Cutline

(Photo by Alex Davidson/Getty Images)

Jelena Damjanovic

Topic

Global Lens

Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education

Global

Sport

Ukraine

Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian and Belarusian tennis players from competing in the Grand Slam tournament due to the ongoing war in Ukraine has drawn sharp criticism from some of the sport’s top players and the associations that represent them.

The Championships, held annually at the All England Club in London, broke from the rest of the tennis world since Russian tennis players have been allowed to remain on the ATP and WTA tours following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February.

Ian Hewitt, chairman of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, said that “given the high profile environment of the Championships, the importance of not allowing sport to be used to promote the Russian regime and our broader concerns for public and player safety, we do not believe it is viable to proceed on any other basis at the Championships.”

Simon Darnell

Men's world number two Daniil Medvedev of Russia and women's world number four Aryna Sabalenka of Belarus are among the players affected by the decision.

The Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP), the governing body of men’s professional tennis circuits, and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) have both issued strongly worded statements condemning the decision, calling it unfair with the potential to set a damaging precedent for the game. The ATP said: "Discrimination based on nationality also constitutes a violation of our agreement with Wimbledon that states that player entry is based solely on ATP rankings. Any course of action in response to this decision will now be assessed in consultation with our board and member councils."

Writer Jelena Damjanovic recently asked Simon Darnell, an associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Kinesiology & Physical Education (KPE) director of KPE’s Centre for Sport Policy Studies, for his thoughts about the decision.

Should individual athletes be held accountable for the actions of their governments?

I think we can all agree that at a basic level it is unfortunate – and even unfair – that individual athletes are being banned from international sports events because of the violent actions of the Russian and Belarussian governments.

If sports existed in a social and political vacuum, this decision on the part of Wimbledon would be unjust. However, in this case I do think the ban is a reasonable and justifiable action for the organizers of Wimbledon to take for at least two reasons: One is that international sport is always firmly connected to politics, and this is especially the case with respect to Russia. The Russian state clearly uses sport – like hosting the 2018 FIFA World Cup – to assert and promote its national image and brand. And it invests in the success of its athletes to build consent for its regime. Russia even repeatedly cheats to achieve such ends, evidenced by its state-sponsored doping program. And even though Wimbledon is an event for individual athletes, as opposed to national teams, the tennis players at Wimbledon, and on the ATP tour, are still firmly identified by their nationality and national affiliations.

What this means is that the politics of sport is a language that Russia, and the world, understands. In response, using sport to send a political message of resistance to the invasion of Ukraine makes sense, and I think its justified. Secondly, not banning Russian and Belarussian athletes from international sport is akin to tacit acceptance of the invasion of Ukraine, which is an indefensible position, geo-politically, ethically or in terms of human rights. So, while it is unfortunate that individual athletes might suffer as a result of this decision, the message being sent is absolutely essential.

Are you aware of any other instances in which individual athletes of one country were banned from participating in sport tournaments?

This is a unique case given the boycotting of individual athletes, as opposed to entire teams and national teams in particular. But there is a history of international sporting boycotts, which I would argue is what this is, in response to unjust policies. The most well-known example is the role of sport in bringing down the racist Apartheid regime in South Africa. The international sporting community refused to play against South African teams until Apartheid ended, and while this sport-based pressure didn’t end Apartheid single handedly, it definitely played a role.

I’m actually happy to see sport organizations engaging in such political issues again.

This announcement has led to heated debates online about which country’s human rights violations deserve sanctions of this kind and which don’t. What’s your take?

I think all human rights violations deserve sanctions or boycotts. I was disappointed that so little was done during the recent Olympics in China in response to the genocide against the Uyghur people, or the Chinese crackdown on political freedom in Hong Kong. No good comes from comparing the pain or suffering of different groups – the point is that international sporting organizations should recognize their ethical responsibility to defend human rights and not look the other way if and when it interferes with their scheduling or threatens their brands or sponsorships.

Is it fair to say that there is a lot of inconsistency among the various sport-governing bodies about when politics and sports can mix?

First, sport and politics are connected, whether we choose to acknowledge this or not. The issue isn’t up for debate. The question is do we accept the political implications of sport or ignore them?

I think we have a responsibility to reckon with the politics of sport. Second, I think asking athletes to subscribe to a particular political perspective in order to participate in sport is a deeply flawed idea.

The point here is not that individual athletes be required to have a particular political point of view (though they should be allowed to express their politics if and when they want to). The real point here is that the international sporting community is entirely justified in sending a message of resistance in response to the invasion of Ukraine and in boycotting sport-based engagement with Russia as a way to send this message.

Given the suffering in Ukraine that is happening as we speak, such actions by sport organizations take precedent over the playing schedules of individual athletes.