Consensus statement

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Consensus Statement on periodic health evaluation of elite athletes March 2009

Arne Ljungqvist¹, Peter Jenoure², Lars Engebretsen^3,4, Juan Manuel Alonso⁵, Roald Bahr⁴, Anthony Clough^6,7, Guido De Bondt⁸, Jiri Dvorak⁹, Robert Maloley¹⁰, Gordon Matheson¹¹, Willem Meeuwisse^12,13, Erik Meijboom¹⁴, Margo Mountjoy¹⁵, Antonio Pelliccia¹⁶, Martin Schwellnus¹⁷, Dominique Sprumont¹⁸, Patrick Schamasch¹⁹, Jean-Benoìt Gauthier¹⁹, Christophe Dubi¹⁹, Howard Stupp¹⁹, Christian Thill¹⁹

¹ Chairman, IOC Medical Commission, Lausanne, Switzerland
² Associate Professor of Sports Medicine, Basel and Neuchâtel, Switzerland
³ Orthopaedic Centre, Ullevaal University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
⁴ Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center, Norwegian School of Sport Sciences, Oslo, Norway
⁵ Medical Department of Royal Spanish Athletic Federation, Madrid, Spain
⁶ Sports Dentistry, University College London, London, UK
⁷ Oral Health, University of Essex, UK
⁸ Belgian Olympic and Interfederal Committee (BOIC), Brussels, Belgium
⁹ Department of Neurology, Spine Unit Schulthess Clinic, Zurich, Switzerland
¹⁰ CEO PrivIT Inc. & PrivIT Healthcare Inc., London, Ontario, Canada
¹¹ Stanford University Department of Athletics, Palo Alto, California, USA
¹² Faculty of Kinesiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada
¹³ Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre, Calgary, Canada
¹⁴ University Hospital Center of Vaud, Lausanne, Switzerland
¹⁵ Health & Performance Centre, University of Guelph, McMaster University Medical School, Canada
¹⁶ The Institute of Sports Medicine and Science of the Italian National Olympic Committee, Rome, Italy
¹⁷ Department of Sports Science and Exercise Medicine, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa
¹⁸ Faculty of Law, University of Neuchâtel, Neuchâtel, Switzerland
¹⁹ IOC, Lausanne, Switzerland

Correspondence to:
^{Correspondence to} Professor Lars Engebretsen, Ortopedisk avdeling Ulleval sykehus, Ullevaal University Hospital, Oslo 0407, Norway; lars.engebretsen@medisin.uio.no

Accepted 10 July 2009

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

The Olympic Games is the largest sport event in the world. In Beijing, 10 500 athletes competed, selected from a large group of elite athletes in 204 countries. Sports participation on the elite level, aside from winning medals, fame and other rewards, is also important from a health perspective. There is no longer any doubt that regular physical activity reduces the risk of premature mortality in general, and of coronary heart disease, hypertension, colon cancer, obesity and diabetes mellitus in particular. The question is whether the health benefits of sports participation outweigh the risk of injury and long-term disability, especially in high-level athletes. Sarna et al¹ have studied the incidence of chronic disease and life expectancy of former male world-class athletes from Finland in endurance sports, power sports and team sports. The overall life expectancy was longer in the high-level athlete compared with a reference group (75.6 vs 69.9 . . . [Full text of this article]

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