You are here

  • Home
  • Archive
  • Volume 55, Issue 19
  • Injury incidence, severity and profile in Olympic combat sports: a comparative analysis of 7712 athlete exposures from three consecutive Olympic Games

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Original research
Injury incidence, severity and profile in Olympic combat sports: a comparative analysis of 7712 athlete exposures from three consecutive Olympic Games
  1. Reidar P Lystad1,
  2. Alexander Alevras1,
  3. Iris Rudy1,
  4. Torbjørn Soligard2,
  5. Lars Engebretsen2,3,4
  1. 1 Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
  2. 2 Medical and Scientific Department, International Olympic Committee, Lausanne, Switzerland
  3. 3 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway
  4. 4 Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center, Oslo, Norway
  1. Correspondence to Dr Reidar P Lystad, Australian Institute of Health Innovation, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia; reidar.lystad{at}mq.edu.au

Abstract

Objectives To describe and compare the epidemiology of competition injuries in unarmed combat sports (ie, boxing, judo, taekwondo and wrestling) in three consecutive Olympic Games.

Methods Prospective cohort study using injury data from the IOC injury surveillance system and exposure data from official tournament records at three consecutive Olympic Games (ie, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio de Janeiro 2016). Competition injury incidence rates per 1000 min of exposure (IIRME) were calculated with 95% CIs using standard formulae for Poisson rates.

Results The overall IIRME was 7.8 (95% CI 7.0 to 8.7). The IIRME in judo (9.6 (95% CI 7.8 to 11.7)), boxing (9.2 (95% CI 7.6 to 10.9)) and taekwondo (7.7 (95% CI 5.6 to 10.5)) were significantly higher than in wrestling (4.8 (95% CI 3.6 to 6.2)). The proportion of injuries resulting in >7 days absence from competition or training was higher in wrestling (39.6%), judo (35.9%) and taekwondo (32.5%) than in boxing (21.0%). There was no difference in injury risk by sex, weight category or tournament round, but athletes that lost had significantly higher IIRME compared with their winning opponents (rate ratio 3.59 (95% CI 2.68 to 4.79)).

Conclusion Olympic combat sport athletes sustained, on average, one injury every 2.1 hours of competition. The risk of injury was significantly higher in boxing, judo and taekwondo than in wrestling. About 30% of injuries sustained during competition resulted in >7 days absence from competition or training. There is a need for identifying modifiable risk factors for injury in Olympic combat sports, which in turn can be targeted by injury prevention initiatives to reduce the burden of injury among combat sport athletes.

  • sporting injuries
  • boxing
  • judo
  • martial arts

Data availability statement

All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsports-2020-102958

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    Data availability statement

    All data relevant to the study are included in the article or uploaded as supplementary information.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • Twitter @RLystad, @TSoligard, @larsengebretsen

    • Contributors RPL, TS and LE conceived the study. TS and LE provided the injury data. RPL, AA and IR collated the exposure data. RPL conducted the analysis and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. RPL, TS and LE interpreted the findings and reviewed and edited the manuscript. All authors approved the final manuscript.

    • Funding The International Olympic Committee funded the collection of the Olympic Games injury data.

    • Competing interests TS and LE work in the Medical and Scientific Department of the IOC as Scientific Manager and Head of Scientific Activities, respectively.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.