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A review of the year that has been
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport 15 (2012) 479
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsams
Editorial
A review of the year that has been
This past year has certainly been a busy one across the sports domain. We have witnessed the London Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as the many lead-up events to those sporting pinnacles. Those events have brought both highs and lows to athletes, teams, sports, and countries. We have witnessed the continued rise of China as a dominant sports nation, the success of Great Britain in their home Olympic Games, and the fighting spirit of many from countries where simply attending these major events was a major feat within itself. The London Olympic Games saw the first women athletes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei compete on the Olympic stage. This long overdue inclusion now means that every National Olympic Committee has included women in their Olympic teams. This may be seen as a great step in women’s sport, and certainly a far cry from the first modern Olympic Games where Baron Pierre de Coubertin indicated that inclusion of women would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect”. I would rather view this as a natural expectation where athletes from either gender and all races are able to demonstrate their success at the world level. The London Olympic Games also saw the unfortunate array of drug offenses. Whilst my last editorial highlighted many issues relating to drugs in sport, one of the real disappointments is borne by those athletes who were “beaten” to medals by drug-enhanced performances. That some athletes were not able to be presented with their medals at the Olympic Games, but were awarded medals after the Games once it became known that their opponents were using performance enhancing drugs, must be a personal disappointment. Perhaps drug detection technologies will improve even further to allow quicker drug detection at sporting events to avoid such instances. This past year has also been important for the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. We have published work across the broad
domains of sports medicine and sports science, and this work has been enthusiastically picked up by researchers and practitioners across the world. The journal has once again improved its impact factor, this year to 3.034, and the highest on record for the journal. This places us in 8th position out of 84 journals in the sports science category. We have also witnessed a record number of submissions to the journal, once again indicating the high esteem in which the journal is held internationally. Submissions to the journal come from over 50 countries and have increased more the three-fold in the past 5–6 years. Beyond the submissions, what is even more important is the number of people accessing published articles in the journal—this is a true indication of reach. With the advent of online accessibility, over 1000 full-text articles from the journal are downloaded each day by people from around 100 countries. As the journal has expanded we have taken the opportunity to build our editorial team, which now represents not only broad discipline coverage but also a much broader geographic spread. Having editorial input from all corners of the world enhances the international nature of the journal and brings broader opinion in the disciplines we cover. This current issue provides readers with papers across many areas. To highlight just a few, we include a review of knee and ankle osteoarthritis in former elite football (soccer) players, a paper that examines risk factors for contact injury in professional rugby league players, a study of an obesity prevention program for adolescent boys, an investigation of career success predictors in Australian football, and a paper on postural control deficits in people with chronic ankle instability. I hope you enjoy this last issue for 2012.
1440-2440/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sports Medicine Australia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2012.10.001
Gregory S. Kolt, PhD Editor-in-Chief
Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect
Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jsams
Editorial
A review of the year that has been
This past year has certainly been a busy one across the sports domain. We have witnessed the London Olympic and Paralympic Games as well as the many lead-up events to those sporting pinnacles. Those events have brought both highs and lows to athletes, teams, sports, and countries. We have witnessed the continued rise of China as a dominant sports nation, the success of Great Britain in their home Olympic Games, and the fighting spirit of many from countries where simply attending these major events was a major feat within itself. The London Olympic Games saw the first women athletes from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Brunei compete on the Olympic stage. This long overdue inclusion now means that every National Olympic Committee has included women in their Olympic teams. This may be seen as a great step in women’s sport, and certainly a far cry from the first modern Olympic Games where Baron Pierre de Coubertin indicated that inclusion of women would be “impractical, uninteresting, unaesthetic, and incorrect”. I would rather view this as a natural expectation where athletes from either gender and all races are able to demonstrate their success at the world level. The London Olympic Games also saw the unfortunate array of drug offenses. Whilst my last editorial highlighted many issues relating to drugs in sport, one of the real disappointments is borne by those athletes who were “beaten” to medals by drug-enhanced performances. That some athletes were not able to be presented with their medals at the Olympic Games, but were awarded medals after the Games once it became known that their opponents were using performance enhancing drugs, must be a personal disappointment. Perhaps drug detection technologies will improve even further to allow quicker drug detection at sporting events to avoid such instances. This past year has also been important for the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport. We have published work across the broad
domains of sports medicine and sports science, and this work has been enthusiastically picked up by researchers and practitioners across the world. The journal has once again improved its impact factor, this year to 3.034, and the highest on record for the journal. This places us in 8th position out of 84 journals in the sports science category. We have also witnessed a record number of submissions to the journal, once again indicating the high esteem in which the journal is held internationally. Submissions to the journal come from over 50 countries and have increased more the three-fold in the past 5–6 years. Beyond the submissions, what is even more important is the number of people accessing published articles in the journal—this is a true indication of reach. With the advent of online accessibility, over 1000 full-text articles from the journal are downloaded each day by people from around 100 countries. As the journal has expanded we have taken the opportunity to build our editorial team, which now represents not only broad discipline coverage but also a much broader geographic spread. Having editorial input from all corners of the world enhances the international nature of the journal and brings broader opinion in the disciplines we cover. This current issue provides readers with papers across many areas. To highlight just a few, we include a review of knee and ankle osteoarthritis in former elite football (soccer) players, a paper that examines risk factors for contact injury in professional rugby league players, a study of an obesity prevention program for adolescent boys, an investigation of career success predictors in Australian football, and a paper on postural control deficits in people with chronic ankle instability. I hope you enjoy this last issue for 2012.
1440-2440/$ – see front matter © 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of Sports Medicine Australia. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jsams.2012.10.001
Gregory S. Kolt, PhD Editor-in-Chief