Background Athletes performance in Olympic Games depends on health condition. Physiotherapy staff treats injuries, relieves pain and manages symptoms to help athletes to reach the highest performance.

Objetive To describe injury profile of athletes treated in Physiotherapy department in London Olympic Games 2012.

Design This is a descriptive epidemiological study about injuries in Olympic Games.

Setting This study was conducted by Brazilian delegation physiotherapists during the Olympic Games in London 2012.

Participants All athletes (n=132) treated in physiotherapy department of Brazilian Olympic committee.

Intervention All brazilian delegation athletes could request for health care in the physiotherapy department. Physiotherapists reported all injuries and interventions in a standard form.

Main outcome measurements The information collected was: name, gender, modality, number of sessions; related to injuries: location, type, cause, mechanism, symptoms duration. The data analyses was descriptive.

Results 132 athletes (72 men/60 women) were treated in 680 treatment sessions with a mean of 5.15 session/injury. Injuries distribution related to modality was: boxe (13.9%), volleyball (13.9%), basketball (12.2%), handball (11.4%), gymnastics (7,3%), judo (6.5%), athletics (5.7%), swimming (5.7%), sailing (5.7%), others (14.7%). Injuries occurred in lower limbs (55.3%), upper limbs (22.7%), trunk (19,6%), others (2,4%). The tendinopathies (29%) and muscular injuries (31%) were the most common type. Most frequent injury cause was overuse (73%) followed by contact injuries (14%). The majority of injuries had more than 4 months duration (33%), followed by 1–7 days duration (24%) and 8–30 days (12%). According to mechanism, 30% was traumatic injuries.

Conclusion The high number of overuse, tendinopathies and long term injuries indicate that many athletes arrived injured at Olympic games. Therefore a preventive strategy for chronic conditions should be a priority in Pre-Olympic training.