65 Science and Medical practitioners actively involved in high performance support programmes with National Federations, Institutes and Olympic Council/Team Ireland Games attended a Sport’s Science and Medical Conference in the Grand Hotel Malahide at the weekend. OCI CEO Stephen Martin commented “The conference was organised by the OCI in collaboration with the Institutes of Sports as part of a coordinated professional development programme for the 2013-16 Olympic Cycle. In this Olympic Cycle we will see greater collective resources and programmes delivered for the science and medical community and an enhanced service to practioners within high performance support”
The Conference theme was “Promoting a Multi-disciplinary Approach to Service Delivery”
Key Outcomes:
• Bringing the medical and science community together (core service providers)
• Sharing of knowledge and information
• Showing case studies to highlight leading practice
• Promoting a multi/inter-disciplinary approach to service delivery as part of preferred internal process
• Getting a “buy in” from the medical and science community on future topics/issues to be addressed
• Identifying challenges and solutions/ strategies for Rio 2016 and other major Games
• Agreeing the content of future programmes and key dates up to Rio 2016
Stephen Martin and Gary Keegan introduced Day 1 commenting on the desire to build on the collaborative approach and sharing of information between the OCI and the Institute of Sport. There followed interactive sessions which looked at case studies to draw out disciplinary and interdisciplinary learning.
These were led by Phil Moore, Rod McLoughlin, Sharon Madigan, Caroline McManus, Tom Comyns, and Joe Conway.
Day 2 was led by the OCI Team of Prof Sean Gaine, Dr Rod McLoughlin, Dr Giles Warrington and Dr Stephen Martin, and from a Team GB perspective Prof Phil Glasgow sharing positive lessons learned at the London 2012 Games.
There followed presentations on the Team Ireland 2016 training camp base in Uberlandia, discussions on Rio challenges and solutions and a general focus on science and medical planning and preparation for 2013- until Rio 2016.There was great interaction in the session from an individual and multi-disciplinary perspective.
Outside of the science and medical workshops another conference key outcome goal was greater interaction between the science and medical support teams, and this was certainly achieved.
