Paralympic Winter Research Articles

Sports Injury and Physiotherapy Services in the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympic Games: Considerations and Potential Recommendations for Future Paralympics

<h3>Research Objectives</h3> To highlight the demographic and clinical characteristics of injured athletes and non-athletes and the physiotherapy services provided during the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Paralympic Games. <h3>Design</h3> Prospective descriptive epidemiology study. <h3>Setting</h3> Physiotherapy Department of Paralympic Village Polyclinic, Republic of Korea, during the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympic Games. <h3>Participants</h3> The study group comprised 201 participants (51 athletes and 150 non-athletes) who were admitted to and utilized the polyclinic physiotherapy service from March 1 to March 20, 2018. <h3>Interventions</h3> The five major comprehensive physiotherapy services included advice (counseling, consultation, referral), therapeutic exercise, manual manipulative therapy, therapeutic modalities, and assistive (prophylactic) devices. The selection of physiotherapy service items was based on the recommendation and guidelines of International Olympic Committee (IOC)/IPC medical commissions and clinical evidence in current literature. <h3>Main Outcome Measures</h3> Types and number of patients and number of physiotherapy modalities used. <h3>Results</h3> Chronic injuries were the most common (n=100, 51%) in athletes and non-athletes. Anatomical injury site analysis revealed the spine and shoulder areas were injured with equal frequency for athletes (n=14, 54.9%) and non-athletes, with the frequencies of 36.7% (n=55) and 26% (n=39), respectively. The Pyeongchang WPG showed a high rate of athletes visiting the physiotherapy service during the pre-competition period (n=50, 33.3%), perhaps led to a lower incidence rate of traumatic injury. The physiotherapy treatment service analysis demonstrated that manual therapy (n=230, 35.4%) was most commonly utilized. <h3>Conclusions</h3> We established the importance of prophylactic and preventive physiotherapy services to reduce the risk of sports injuries during WPG. <h3>Author(s) Disclosures</h3> The authors report no conflict of interest.

From snow to stones, the science we learned during the Olympic Games

Snow business This year’s Winter Olympics has drawn to a close and we are all turning our attention to the Winter Paralympics in March. A perfect time, Newscripts decided, to take a sideways look at some of the medal-winning science that made the games in Beijing possible. One of the key innovations, much covered in the news, was the reliance on artificial snow to build the slopes and half-pipes for the snow sports. As C&EN foretold , the 2022 Winter Olympics relied almost entirely on snowmaking, but not because of the temperature. Instead, the issue in Beijing is the lack of seasonal precipitation. Snowmakers in Beijing did not have to rely on chemical nucleators to produce the snow, as many winter sports venues do, just good old-fashioned cold nights to freeze the water shot into the air by machinery. That means that what the 2022 games needed is water—and lots

Status Analysis and Development Countermeasures of Nanjing Indoor Simulated Ski Hall

After seven years of hard work, the successful holding of the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games has attracted wide attention from society, and the development of the ice and snowfall industry has also advanced by leaps and bounds. Earning and learning about snow and ice sports became prominent across the country. The hosting of the Beijing Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games has considerably promoted the strategy of "widening south, west and east" for ice and snow sports, with remarkable results. In this context, various current commercial indoor simulated ski resorts have been developed across the country, but due to the lack of mass base, cultural heritage and epidemic reasons, the survival of many indoor simulated ski resorts in southern China is in jeopardy. It is required to evaluate and suggest their survival status and existing problems. By selecting eight indoor simulated ski resorts in Nanjing, the basic information of the indoor simulated ski consumers, members, coaches and operation team in Nanjing was fully understood through literature, questionnaire, interview and data statistics. As a result, Nanjing indoor simulation ski hall lacked professional ski coaches and service staff, the teaching content was single and boring, and the long-term impact of the epidemic brought a long-term closure to the venue. Suggested to increase professional coaches and service personnel, to their training system, optimize and upgrade the coaches qualification, establish evaluation mechanism, improve the quality of service and teaching, through multi-platform publicity and promotion of indoor simulation ski pavilion, set up mobile small program convenient interaction with students, maintain contact with consumers, ensure during the outbreak in the store drainage will not reduce.

Research on the Integration Mechanism of Sports, Culture and Tourism in the Post-Winter Olympics Era: Yanqing District as an Example

Yanqing District is a non-core area of Beijing and an important ecological cultured area of the capital, and it is also the location of the core competition area of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics. The promotion of sports, culture and tourism integration in Yanqing District is the realistic manifestation of General Secretary Xi Jinping's "four important" thesis on sports; it is an effective intermediary focusing on the new requirements of high-quality economic and social development; it is the contemporary embodiment of efforts to build sports as a landmark cause for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Yanqing district seize the once-in-a-lifetime development opportunity, with the World Park, the Winter Olympics, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei integration, etc. adhere to the integrated development of culture, sports and tourism, the establishment of interconnected coordination mechanism, the formation of a "sports platform, help culture and tourism; cultural tourism upgrade, sports value-added" the whole area of culture, sports and tourism sustainable development pattern. However, the integrated development of sports, culture and tourism in the "post-Winter Olympics" era still has certain shortcomings, and the next stage requires further efforts in terms of planning, publicity, industry and coordination.

An AI-Based Curling Game System for Winter Olympics.

The real-time application of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in sports is a long-standing challenge owing to large spatial sports field, complexity, and uncertainty of real-world environment, etc. Although some AI-based systems have been applied to sporting events such as tennis, basketball, and football, they are replayed after the game rather than applied in real time. Here, we present an AI-based curling game system, termed CurlingHunter, which can display actual trajectories, predicted trajectories, and house regions of curling during the games via a giant screen in curling stadiums and a live streaming media platform on the internet in real time, so as to assist the game, improve the interest of watching game, help athletes train, etc. We provide a complete description of CurlingHunter' architecture and a thorough evaluation of its performances and demonstrate that CurlingHunter possesses remarkable real-time performance (~9.005 ms), high accuracy (30 ± 3 cm under measurement distance > 20 m), and good stability. CurlingHunter is the first, to the best of our knowledge, real-time system that can assist athletes to compete during the games in the history of sports and has been successfully applied in Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics. Our work highlights the potential of AI-based systems for real-time applications in sports.

More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan by Dennis J. Frost

Reviewed by: More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan by Dennis J. Frost Wolfram Manzenreiter More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan. By Dennis J. Frost. Cornell University Press, 2021. 336 pages. ISBN: 9781501753084 (hardcover; also available as e-book). Not much has been known about the history of Japanese disability sports until recently, neither among the general public in Japan nor among specialists in the field of disability sports studies. English-language material on this subject matter has been close to nonexistent, and the few scholarly surveys of Japanese sports in general, including my own book Sport and Body Politics in Japan (New York: Routledge, 2014), are tellingly silent on sports in the service of medical rehabilitation or social inclusion of people with physical impairments. The situation is somewhat better in regard to Japanese-language sources, though even there the gap between academic discourse and general knowledge proved large enough to prompt the organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games to dedicate considerable attention and resources to raising public awareness in the long buildup toward the occasion. For an international audience particularly in the domains of Japanese contemporary history and disability sports studies, Dennis J. Frost has meanwhile produced a fine and accessible historical account that draws on the results of a decade of largely archival work. More Than Medals: A History of the Paralympics and Disability Sports in Postwar Japan covers a period of roughly sixty years between Japan's first international sports event for the disabled, held on the occasion of the 1964 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, and the most recent edition of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Summer Games held in 2021. These events are discussed in depth in the first and last of five chapters, respectively. The three chapters in between retell the history of other seminal sports events that have arguably slipped from memory among the largely Euro-American group of Paralympic historians: the Far East and South Pacific Games for the Disabled (FESPIC), a multisport and multidisability competition held from 1975 to 2006; the Oita International Wheelchair Marathon, staged annually in the city of Ōita (capital of the prefecture of the same name) since 1981; and the 1998 Winter Paralympics in Nagano. Frost's analysis clearly reveals not only the long-standing engagement of Japanese activists in the promotion of [End Page 378] disability sports at both domestic and international levels, but also the social constructedness of disability and its changing perception through the decades. As the first chapter, "Tokyo's Other Games," reminds its readership, disability sports in Japan as elsewhere had their roots in medical therapy and rehabilitation exercises. European experiences with the effectiveness of sports in the treatment of war veterans provided the background for the establishment of the first international competition for disabled athletes, the Stoke Mandeville Games, and inspired medical doctors in Japan to promote their own vision of sports in the service of disability rehabilitation training. In marked contrast to the explicit focus of the Stoke Mandeville Games on athletes suffering from severe spinal injuries, Japanese pioneers and, ultimately, the organizers of the 1964 Tokyo Paralympics pursued a more inclusive approach. These "other games" combined the established tradition of the Stoke Mandeville Games with two additional days of competition by multidisabled athletes gathered from all of Japan as well as invited from Europe. Private-sector sponsorship secured the additional funds needed to carry out the historically unprecedented task of putting together an international multidisciplinary and multidisability sporting event. Frost records major donations from the Lions Club as well as the Japanese Automobile Manufacturing Association and Japanese Bicycle Promotion Institute, though I think it should have been mentioned here or elsewhere in the study that the latter two organizations, which in part oversee government-sponsored gambling, are required by their constitutions to transfer part of their income to the promotion of sports and welfare-related projects. Frost's account particularly honors the manifold contributions of Nakamura Yutaka, a medical doctor based in Ōita Prefecture, to disability sports and the Paralympics. Nakamura was one of a small number of individuals and representatives...

Історія становлення європейського паралімпійського спорту (ХХ – початок ХХІ ст.)

The purpose of the study is to summarize the history of the development of Paralympic sports in European countries, to identify the main problems and prospects for the development of the Paralympic movement. Th e research methodology is based on the principles of historicism, objectivity, impartiality, and social approach, as well as the use of systemic, anthropological, integrated and value-based approaches. Th e general scientifi c (analysis and synthesis), general historical (chronological and historical-comparative) and interdisciplinary research methods (citation, content analysis, interpretative analysis) have been used. Th e scientifi c novelty lies in the fact that the origins of the European Paralympic Sports in the twentieth century are comprehensively analyzed, the participation of athletes with disabilities from European countries is covered, the origins and development of the Summer and Winter Paralympic Games are described, the main directions, problems and prospects for the development of the European Paralympic Movement are identifi ed. Conclusion. Th e Paralympic movement today is an important component of international sport, a key factor in ensuring the social adaptation of people with disabilities in society, maintaining the confi dence and faith of people with disabilities in their capabilities. In fact, there are no known and popular sports that do not involve athletes with disabilities. Th e number of Paralympic disciplines is steadily expanding. Paralympic sports contribute to optimizing the physical, mental, and moral condition of people with disabilities. With the development of the national system of physical education and sports, the need for further broad and comprehensive involvement of people with disabilities in active exercise should be broadened and given priority in the processes of socialization of people with disabilities. Th e creation of equal conditions for people with disabilities in terms of their involvement in physical education and sports is the main achievement of developed European countries. Th is experience of European traditions of Paralympic sports is very valuable for Ukraine as well.

Analysis on the Coordinated Development of Sports from the Perspective of “Sports Power”

Promulgated by the National Sports Commission to further open up new opportunities for sports request in 1983, “sports power” has been clearly put forward to the end of this century to build China into a “world sports power” as its development goal. At the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), the proposals to carry out extensive national fitness activities, speed up efforts to build China into a strong sports country, ensure the preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics are excellent, as well as strengthen cultural and people-to-people exchanges with other countries were once again put forward. From the objective level, as an important strategy of China’s social development, “sports power” must be in line with China’s social development situation, dynamically adjust the direction of the development of sports cause, truly achieve the development goal of “sports power,” and display the cultural soft power of the Chinese nation. This article focuses on the connotation of “sports power” and the current situation of China’s sports development in a detailed analysis in order to study on the coordinated development strategy of sports from the perspective of “sports power.”

Assessment of Snowmaking Conditions Based on Meteorological Reconstruction in the Beijing–Zhangjiakou Mountain Area of North China in 1978–2017

AbstractThe outdoor events of the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics will be held in the mountain areas of Beijing–Zhangjiakou, North China, where there is a complete reliance on artificial snow production owing to the dry and cold weather conditions. To assess how favorable the meteorological conditions are to snowmaking at the mountain venues, we reconstructed the daily wet-bulb temperature by adopting the thin-plate smoothing spline function method, and then we assessed the potential number of snowmaking days at eight weather stations (928–2098 m MSL) from October to the next April (i.e., the ski season) during the period 1978–2017. Results showed that artificial snow production would have been possible on 121 (±14) to 171 (±12) days on average at the stations with the increases of altitude, and the number of days decreased at rates of 4.3–5.1 days decade−1 across four decades of the study period. The cause of the decrease was the warming trend, which affected the number of days in low-altitude sites simultaneously, but the reduction was delayed with increased elevation. At monthly scale, the number of snowmaking days was robust in wintertime but reduced in other months of the ski season, particularly in March in more recent subperiods at high-altitude stations, which was determined by the increase in high values of daily mean wet-bulb temperature. Further improvements in assessing snowmaking conditions require detailed microclimatic studies to reduce the uncertainties caused by meteorological conditions as well as combination with model-based methods to determine potential future changes.

Dynamic Performance of a Novel Prefabricated Curling Ice Rink: Human Locomotion Load Measurement and FE Simulation Analysis

A novel prefabricated curling rink supported by steel frame and precast concrete blocks has been tested by the 2019 China Youth Curling Open, and that will be responsible for the Beijing Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics curling competitions in 2022. Due to quite limited researches on the mechanical properties of this professional curling venue, the dynamic behavior of the prefabricated rink under human activities are not well understood. In particular, people and curling stones are potentially more susceptible to the ice vibrations when compared to the traditional curling rink constructed on rammed foundation. Small ice rink vibrations caused by the human locomotion load can make athletes feel uncomfortable, which could affect competition experience, techniques, and skills of the occupancies. At the same time, it can also result in a slightly change of the curling stone trajectories, which ultimately caused the athletes to adopt an erroneous strategy. In order to get a further understanding of the above problems, this paper conducts a series of performance studies based on the 3D finite element model built in ABAQUS and the measured dynamic loads. In this context, it includes the research of on-site measurement of dynamic loads caused by different types of human locomotion on ice sheet, which can provide a reference to the dynamic performance design of prefabricated curling rink supported by similar structural systems. Moreover, the time and amplitude parameters of the footfall forces are extracted to analyze and be compared with the human induced loads results from the existing research, generally obtained on the concrete surface. Then, on the base of the finite element model verified by experiment, the experimental achieved loads are applied for the dynamic analysis to study the vibration acceleration and velocity response of ice sheet. Finally, the vibration response results, including peak acceleration (PA), vibration dose value (VDV), root mean square acceleration (RMS), as well as root mean square velocity were evaluated according to the regulations proposed by the International Olympic Committee and the vibration evaluation standards suggested by AISC design guide, ISO guideline, and VC curves. The analysis results indicate that innovation prefabricated curling ice rink supported by steel-concrete composite floors can meet the requirements of the event and has the prospect of promotion and application.

The Application of Medical Imaging on Disabled Athletes in Winter Paralympic Games: A Systematic Review

Purpose: the purpose of this study was to summarize the application and effects of current medical imaging in sports for the disabled, to provide a feasible reference for future imaging medical services and biomechanical modeling for winter Paralympic athletes. Methods: An electronic search was conducted among Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, and Web of Science databases, using the following keywords, “Disability,” “Winter Olympics” and “Medical Imaging.” Inclusion and exclusion criteria were used to screen all identified studies. Of the 374 identified studies, 10 studies were included. Results: Most studies have reported on the application of medical imaging technology in the diagnosis of disability (n =6) and only a few have focused on biomechanical modeling (n = 3) and disability classification (n = 1). However, only 3 studies were involved in winter Paralympic athletes. The results of this study indicate that medical imaging technology can effectively diagnose and prevent the occurrence of injuries in disabled athletes. Conclusion: It is important to use medical imaging to understand the injury mechanism of winter Paralympics athletes and to develop injury prevention strategies. However, only a few studies have focused on the application of medical imaging technology to the winter Paralympic. The results of this study can provide a feasible reference for the medical treatment and training of athletes in the Winter Paralympic Games.

Hosting the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games and wellbeing among Canadian youth

ABSTRACT Research question Although research traction is increasing, intangible social impacts are still difficult to measure and relatively under-researched compared to their tangible economic counterparts. Thus, the current study examines the question: what were the associations between hosting the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games, social wellbeing (i.e. sense of belonging), and subjective wellbeing (i.e. life satisfaction) among Canadian youth? Research methods Using data from the Canadian Community Health Survey (n > 1,000,000), a time series analysis of youths’ (aged 12–19) reports of perceived sense of belonging to their community and perceived life satisfaction across four time points before and after the Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games at the national, provincial, and regional levels was conducted. Research findings The number of youths who reported a strong sense of belonging to their community significantly increased in the host region of North Shore after the Games concluded (2011–2012 to 2013–2014). The number of youths who reported a strong sense of belonging to their community and high life satisfaction significantly increased from 2007–2008 (pre-event) to 2009–2010 in the host region of Richmond. Implications This study provides preliminary evidence that mega-sport events might positively affect wellbeing of youth living in regions that house venues for the event. The study also demonstrates the temporary nature of positive social impacts. Suggestions for how to help create situations where positive social impacts are more likely, and to help maintain the wellbeing benefits of mega-sport events for youth populations are offered.

Dried blood spots in doping analysis.

A series of dried blood spot (DBS) detection methods for doping agents havebeen developed in the last two decades. The DBS technique minimizes invasiveness and reduces storage and shipping costs. Recently, the World Anti-Doping Agencyannounced the use of DBS for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games and Paralympic Games owing to the advantages of the DBS application in routine doping control. Thereforethe further development of detection methods for doping agents in DBS is important and urgent. This review summarizes five aspects of DBS application in doping analysis: sample collection, storage conditions, pretreatment, instrumentation and validation according to the Prohibited List issued by theWorld Anti-Doping Agency, and proposes some suggestions for future studies of DBS in doping analysis.

Patterns of Athlete Medication Use at the 2018 PyeongChang Paralympic Games: A Descriptive Cohort Study.

Medication use among elite athletes has received growing attention over the past decades. However, only limited studies have focused on para athletes, and trends in medication use among this cohort remain unclear. The aims of this study were (1) to describe the pattern of medication use in elite Paralympic athletes, with a particular focus on analgesics, (2) to analyze whether medications declared by athletes were included in the 2018 World Anti-Doping Agency's prohibited list and monitoring program, (3) to report on a variety of novel supplements, and (4) to review whether athlete analgesic needs will be met by the new Olympic & Paralympic Model Formulary. This is a retrospective, descriptive cohort study. Of all athletes who underwent doping control, 21% declared the use of an analgesic medication. Athletes with limb deficiency and para snowboarders declared the most analgesic medications in their respective categories. It was determined that 84% of the athletes' analgesic medication needs were provided from the new Olympic & Paralympic Model Formulary. Analgesic use among athletes who participated at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Paralympics was high. Para snowboarders and athletes with limb deficiency declared the most analgesics. The new Olympic & Paralympic Model Formulary adequately addressed the medication needs of the athletes attending the 2018 games.

The Evolution of China’s Sporting Diplomacy since 1949

The sporting diplomacy in China, as an integral part of China’s overall diplomacy, unswervingly upholds the fundamental foreign policy goal of preserving world peace and promoting common development since New China was founded. After adopting the policy of reform and opening, the sporting diplomacy in China has made historical achievements through intensive participation in international sporting competitions, extensive involvement in international sporting organizations, active hosting of mega sports events, and frequent engagement in cultural sporting exchanges with other countries. In the last decade, with a constant increase in China’s economy, cultural soft power and international influence of sports, China makes an all-round effort in the pursuit of major countrywide sporting diplomacy with Chinese characteristics. Currently, despite the severe challenges outside China, Beijing is making smooth preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, which embraces another milestone in the diplomacy of sport in China. This paper analyzes decision environments, goals, actions and defining features of China’s sporting diplomacy in different periods and follows on to summarize practical experiences in the development of the sporting diplomacy in China. The paper shows that the resounding success of China’s sporting diplomacy can be attributed to its commitment to serving the country’s diplomatic strategy and core interests, its commitment to following the Chinese path of sporting diplomacy, and its commitment to the traditional Chinese value of peaceful development. Finally, emerging issues and promotion strategies are presented.

A special tribute to Dr. Jack and Cheryl Taunton

This editorial introduces the special tribute series dedicated to Dr. Jack and Cheryl Taunton. This special tribute includes more than 20 commentaries from leading exercise scientists, academics, athletes, physicians, professional teams and organizations, friends, and family from around the international community. This series outlines the key roles that Jack and Cheryl have played in the creation and implementation of major regional, national, and international events and organizations (like the 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Vancouver Sun Run, the Vancouver Marathon, SportMedBC, the Grand Prix of Cycling, and the Canadian Health & Fitness Institute). This series also outlines the influential mentorship roles that they have played in the lives of so many successful physicians, athletes, academics, and students from throughout the world. A central theme of these commentaries is the compassion and consideration that Jack and Cheryl have provided to others. Collectively, these articles highlight the truly remarkable careers of Jack and Cheryl and their influential roles in the lives of others.

Content Strategy and Fan Engagement in Social Media The Case of PyeongChang Winter Olympic And Paralympic Games

Content Strategy and Fan Engagement in Social Media The Case of PyeongChang Winter Olympic And Paralympic Games

Evaluation of Simulated Winter Precipitation Using WRF-ARW during the ICE-POP 2018 Field Campaign

AbstractThis study evaluates the performance of several cloud microphysics parameterizations in simulating surface precipitation for two snowstorm cases during the International Collaborative Experiment held at the PyeongChang 2018 Olympics and Winter Paralympic Games (ICE-POP 2018) field campaign. We compared four different schemes in the Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) Model, namely the double-moment 6-class (WDM6), the WRF single-moment 6-class (WSM6), and Thompson and Morrison parameterizations. Both WSM6 and WDM6 overestimated the precipitation amount for the shallow precipitation system because of the substantial amount of cloud ice, mostly generated by the deposition process. The simulated precipitation amount and distribution for the deep precipitation system showed no noticeable differences in the different cloud microphysics parameterizations. However, the simulated hydrometeor type at the surface using WSM6 and WDM6 showed good agreement with observations for all cases. The accuracy of the mean mass-weighted terminal velocity of cloud ice applied in WSM6 and WDM6 is ±20%. The number concentration of cloud ice and the ice microphysics processes are newly retrieved with 1.2 times increased . For the shallow snowstorm, the precipitation amount was reduced by approximately 8% because of the inefficient deposition and its effects on the subsequent ice microphysical processes, such as the accretion of cloud ice by snow and the conversion from cloud ice to snow.

Automated high-throughput analysis of tramadol and O-desmethyltramadol in dried blood spots.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the International Testing Agency (ITA) recently announced the development and implementation of dried blood spot (DBS) testing for routine analysis in time for the 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Beijing. Following the introduction of a ban on the use of tramadol in competition in March 2019, the Union Cycliste International (UCI) started a pilot study for the manual analysis of tramadol in DBS for antidoping purposes. In this context, we present a fully automated LC-MS/MS-based method with automated sample preparation using a CAMAG DBS-MS 500 for the analysis of tramadol and its metabolite O-desmethyltramadol in DBS. The presented approach reduces manual handling in the laboratory to an absolute minimum, only requiring the preparation of calibration and quality control DBS cards. The method was developed, optimized, and validated before performing cross-validation with a liquid blood-based analysis method using authentic samples from forensic cases. During the validation process, the method showed an extraction efficiency of 62%, linearity r2 > 0.99, accuracy and precision (within ± 15% and ± 20% at the LLOQ) for the determination of tramadol and O-desmethyltramadol. Method comparison in liquid blood with 26 samples showed good agreement (90 ± 19% for tramadol and 94 ± 14% for O-desmethyltramadol). In conclusion, automated analysis of tramadol and O-desmethyltramadol in DBS provides a fast and accurate solution for antidoping screening. It is suited for high-throughput analysis, having a run time of about 4 min per sample. Furthermore, with the automated approach, manual sample extraction becomes obsolete.

Development and application of PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games Accessibility Manual

Introduction In this study, the process of development, application, and evaluation of the PyeongChang Organising Committee for the 2018 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games(POCOG) Accessibility Manual was introduced and the basic data for accessing venues and ways to improve accessible sporting event management were suggested. Methods Analysing and comparing the IPC Guide and Korean accessibility laws with eight advisory meetings were held to develop “POCOG Accessibility Manual”. To verify the Manual standards, accessibility assessment of the Paralympic Test-event, Olympic and Paralympic Games was conducted. Results POCOG Accessibility Manual was developed based on the best practice of accessibility standards and feedback from various experts. Throughout the three-step verifications, many findings have resulted in the final recommendations for the improvements in the operation of the Olympic and Paralympic Games accessibility. Conclusions The study provided fundamental data to develop an inclusive game operation manual for future international sports competitions, and it could ultimately serve as a cornerstone for integration and inclusion through sports. Implications for Rehabilitation Ensuring accessibility can secure equal opportunities to participate and enjoy the events for everyone in mega-sporting events including persons with disabilities. However, the current Korean construction law does not adequately address the accessibility requirements for the Paralympic Games. Therefore, the study of the development of the 2018 Pyeongchang Accessibility Manual based on IPC guidelines was important. In this study, the 2018 Pyeongchang Accessibility Manual was applied and evaluated according to the planning stage of the 2017 Paralympic test-events, PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympic and paralympic Games. The result derived from our study will provide a strategy to ensure the accessibility for persons with disabilities to countries hosting future sports events.