Thu, 06 Sep 2007 02:27:20 GMT

Maria Sharapova Knocked Off By Teen Tennis Sensation

Source:www.sports.excite.com

20-year-old tennis phenom, Maria Sharapova, met her match at the U.S. Open Tennis Championships, during the "round of 16", in 18-year-old Polish raqueteer, Agnieszka Radwanska.



Source:www.newsimg.bbc.co.uk

This has happened before to another number 2 ranked tennis pro, Andrea Jaeger, but she did not lose to a 30th seeded player.

Oh well, I guess as in football, "on any given day....".

I'm sure the lithe 6 foot 2 inch beauty will recover, but for now, I for one, would not want to get on her wrong side.

Here's the story about the defending U.S. Open women's champion, Maria Sharapova's downfall. Posted by: jim      Read more     Source

August 29, 2007, 9:43 PM CT

Injuries of Football Season

Football Fever is upon the nation once again. The soaring of the pigskin signals the start of the "busy" season for cheerleaders, marching bands, and inevitably, sports medicine physicians.

"After only a few days of practice at UB we've had three players with ACL injuries, a medial collateral ligament tear, a dislocated shoulder and a dislocated elbow," said Marc Fineberg, M.D., chief of sports medicine in the University at Buffalo School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

University Sports Medicine doctors serve as team physicians for the Buffalo Bills, the Buffalo Sabres and Western New York's major collegiate football teams -- the UB Bulls, the Buffalo State Bengals and the Erie Community College Kats. They also treat many of the area's high school teams.

Prevention is the primary goal of everyone involved in the sport, but when large, highly charged males engage in bodily contact, injuries are inevitable. Knee and ankle sprains are the most common injuries treated during football season, followed by concussion and shoulder sprains, said Fineberg.

The knee injury most common in football is a sprained medial collateral ligament, or MCL, one of four ligaments that support the knee joint. MCL injuries, which usually occur during a tackle or block -- sometimes because of an illegal hit -- heal on their own without surgery, said Fineberg......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 15, 2007, 8:18 PM CT

Study asks how safe is high school football?

Football, one of the most popular sports in the United States, is also the leading cause of sports-related injuries. During the 2005-06 season, high school football players sustained more than half a million injuries nationally. A study conducted by scientists in the Center for Injury Research and Policy (CIRP) at Columbus Childrens Hospital, is the first to compare injuries among high school and collegiate football players using a nationally representative sample.

As per the study, reported in the recent issue of The American Journal of Sports Medicine, four out of every 1,000 high school football exposures resulted in an injury, while eight out of every 1,000 collegiate football exposures resulted in an injury. Eventhough National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) football players were twice as likely to sustain an injury as high school football players, high school football players sustained a greater proportion of season-ending injuries, fractures and concussions in comparison to collegiate football players.

While football does have a high rate of injuries, injuries dont have to be just part of the game, said Christy Collins, MA, research associate in CIRP at Childrens Hospital and co-author of the study. There are ways to reduce the number and severity of football injuries through targeted interventions. Because we observed high levels of ankle and knee injuries, we recommend increased conditioning of ankles and knees and rule changes aimed at protecting these vulnerable body sites. As most of the injuries to these regions were due to ligament sprains, targeted stretching exercises may also be beneficial......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:51 PM CT

MRI provides insight for safe return-to-play decisions

Concussions are common in young athletes but the underlying changes in brain function that occur have been poorly understood. Now, a University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study is the first to link changes in brain function directly to the recovery of the athlete. Results of the five-year study, funded by the National Institutes of Health, are reported in the recent issue of the scientific peer-evaluated journal, Neurosurgery, the official journal of the Congress of Neurological Surgeons.

We observed that abnormal brain activity in children and adolescents on functional MRI (fMRI) was clearly correlation to their performance on neuropsychological tests of attention and memory and to their report of symptoms such as headaches, said principal investigator Mark Lovell, Ph.D., asssociate professor in the departments of orthopaedic surgery and neurological surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

These results confirm crucial objective information that is usually obtained by neuropsychological testing to help team doctors and athletic trainers make critical decisions about concussion management and safe return to play, added Dr. Lovell, who is founding director of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) Sports Medicine Concussion Program, a clinical service and research program focused on the management of sports-related concussions......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

August 6, 2007, 5:17 PM CT

Test To Detect Gene Doping In Athletes

Gene doping has the potential to spawn athletes capable of out-running, out-jumping and out-cycling the strongest of champions. But research under way at the University of Florida could help level the playing field by detecting the first cases of gene doping in professional athletes before the practice enters the mainstream.

In the wake of recent Tour de France drug violations and with the 2008 Olympics looming the need to stay ahead of the game has never been more evident. Thats why the Montreal-based World Anti-Doping Agency, or WADA, charged with monitoring the conduct of athletes, is working with scientists around the globe to develop a test that would bust competitors for injecting themselves with genetic material capable of enhancing muscle mass or heightening endurance.

If an athlete injects himself in the muscle with DNA, would we be able to detect that" asked one of Frances leading gene therapy researchers, Philippe Moullier, M.D., Ph.D., an adjunct professor of microbiology and molecular genetics at UF and director of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at the Universite de Nantes in France.

Right now the answer is no, he said. But the UF scientists are among several groups collaborating with national and global anti-doping organizations to develop a test that could detect evidence of doped DNA......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:00:19 GMT

Fans Don't Like David Beckham

L.A. Galaxy / David Beckham fans showed their anger over his non-playing ass during their game in Dallas the old traditional way..... Poster board and Markers. I don't blame them, considering his ass is getting paid millions playing a sport that's not very popular around here. Big in Europe yes, America, hell no. But don't think I won't be the big bitch throwing elbows to get in when they play here in Ohio.
You know I wanna see that tight soccer ass up close and personal baby! The kid in the last pic is telling the straight up truth. You know 95% of the men that showed up just wanted to see Posh Spice in all of her plastic glory!
digg_url = 'DIGG_PERMALINK_URL';

For more daily new posts visit www.poponthepop.com Posted by: Joy A      Read more     Source

August 3, 2007, 5:07 AM CT

Heat-related deaths in middle, high school football players

Every year, Fred Mueller compiles a sports list, but unlike popular pre-season picks or a glamorous hot-recruit sheet, nobody envies him this task. Some years the list is longer than others, but, Mueller said, theres no reason any kid should be on it.

Its a list of boys who died playing or practicing football, kids whose body temperatures rose so high and so fast under the summer sun that their brains couldnt keep up, couldnt regulate their cores, and the boys died.

When something is preventable., Mueller said, shaking his head. Those kids could be alive today.

Five young athletes, from 11 to 17 years old, died of heat stroke in 2006. The trend was declining. The last time there were more than five was 1972, when there were seven. In five of the past 16 years there were none. But, Mueller said, there have been 31 since 1995, and all of them could have been avoided.

Seven other players died last year of heart-related deaths that might or night not have been related to heat or exertion. And we dont know the number of kids who had heat exhaustion, Mueller said.

With summer practice about to swing into high gear, Mueller said its time to remember these kids, and to keep in mind how heat-related deaths can be prevented.

• Require each athlete to have a physical and know if an athlete has a history of heat-related illness; these kids are more susceptible to heat stroke. Overweight players are also at higher risk.

........ Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 30, 2007, 9:39 PM CT

Better baseball

How a number of games does it take to ensure that the best team in a sports league ends up with the best record" As per a research studyby a pair of physicists at the Los Alamos national Laboratory in New Mexico, the answer is an astounding 256 games per team in the case of baseball's National League, well beyond the 162 games each team currently plays in the regular season.

As per the physicists' analysis and simulations of league play, there¿s always at least some chance that a lesser team can prevail in any given game. The randomness of outcomes means that it takes a large number of games to guarantee that the best team accumulates the most wins. Specifically, it requires that the total number of games played in a season should be roughly the cube of the number of teams involved. For the 16 team National League, that means 4096 regular season games altogether and 2744 games for the 14 team American League.

Some fans might prefer things the way they are, with underdogs like the 2003 Florida Marlins having a shot at winning the Word Series. For those who would rather the title only go to the very best team in any given year, a modified schedule could get the job done with a number of fewer games, as per the physicists.

By adding a preliminary round to the season, and eliminating the weakest teams before regular league play begins, the physicists showed that the best team in the National League would be virtually guaranteed to be among the top two or three teams with the best records, even with a significantly reduced number of games. Eventhough the very best team may not always end up in the lead, a preliminary round or two would at least ensure that the top teams aren't eliminated from the playoffs through simple bad luck......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 15, 2007, 9:24 PM CT

Throwing motion in young baseball players

Adaptive changes occur in the arm bone and soft tissue of the shoulders of young athletes participating in youth baseball and help protect them against injury, according to new research released recently at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine at the Telus Convention Center (July 12-15).

Young baseball players who throw a lot maintain external shoulder rotation as they mature, says principal investigator Scott D. Mair, M.D., associate professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. Good external rotation of the shoulder helps athletes throw faster while reducing their chance of injury.

Some shoulder motion is naturally lost through aging. Dr. Mair says that the throwing shoulder does not lose as much external rotation. An adult will never have as much shoulder motion as a nine year-old, he explains.

To evaluate the adaptive changes in the shoulder joint of overhead throwing athletes, Dr. Mair and colleagues followed 32 male baseball players between 13 and 21 years of age for six years to study changes in range of motion, strength, and X-ray images.

The researchers found that the act of throwing causes changes in the upper arm bone and soft tissue in the shoulders of young baseball players. This is not necessarily a bad thing, explains Dr. Mair. It can help protect players from injury. However, pitch counts that are too high and playing year-round can push those adaptive changes to the point of injury......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source

July 10, 2007, 5:25 AM CT

Average major league baseball career 5.6 years

The average career of a Major League Baseball player is 5.6 years, as per a new study by a University of Colorado at Boulder research team.

The study also revealed that one in five position players will have only a single-year career, and that at every point of a player's career, the player's chance of ending his career is at least 11 percent.

Results of the study, "Major League Baseball Career Length in the 20th Century," would be reported in the recent issue of Population Research and Policy Review. The study was conducted by former CU-Boulder graduate student William Witnauer, sociology Professor Richard Rogers and doctoral student Jarron Saint Onge. Rogers also directs the Population Program in the CU-Boulder Institute of Behavioral Science.

"Population research can provide rich insight into important and popular social issues, including baseball," Rogers said.

The study examined the career statistics of baseball players who started their careers between 1902 and 1993. Pitchers were excluded because of their unique positions, career volatility and propensity for injuries.

Between 1902 and 1993, 5,989 position players started their careers and played 33,272 person years of Major League Baseball. Using voluminous baseball statistics, the authors then developed a table of average career lengths for the players......... Posted by: Jim      Read more         Source