Doha: 4th July 2015- For the fourth consecutive year, Aspetar researchers and sports scientists showcased their knowledge and experience at the 20th Annual congress of the European College of Sport Science (ECSS) that took place between June 24th and 27th, 2015, in Malmö, Sweden. The ECSS congress emphasises exchange of knowledge through oral and poster presentations and has celebrated its 20th anniversary this year. During last year’s congress which took place on July 2nd – 5th in Amsterdam, Aspetar announced long term collaboration with the ECSS and launched an “Excellence in Football Research Award” a successful initiative that attracted more than 70 research abstracts, 5 of them have been selected of which, 3 projects have been awarded with a motivating prizes. Aspetar’s Director General Representative Mrs Salwa Allenjawi, Director of Medical Imaging at Aspetar chaired the award ceremony presentations on the first day of the conference and announced the 3 winning projects:. The first prize went to Michael Nyberg from Denmark on the abstract “Repeated-sprint training improves O2 uptake kinetics and performance in highly trained football players: role of fiber type specific adaptations in skeletal muscle”. The second price was won by Danny Christiansen from Australia with the abstract “The effect of cold-water immersion on the change in skeletal muscle na+-k+-atpase genes following intense intermittent exercise in humans”. And finally the third price went to Amelia Carr from Australia with the abstract “Natural altitude training at 1380 m combined with 9h per day at 3000 m is an effective altitude training mode”. The aim of the award is aligned with Aspetar’s vision to be a leader in sports medicine by attracting and supporting novels, applied research projects that have potential applications to the football pitch and boost applied research on different aspects of football, with intention to extract new knowledge that can be applied on the field and Identify talented sports scientists around the world. Commenting on the occasion Mrs Salwa Allenjawi, Aspetar Director of Medical Imaging said “Aspetar has several common points of interest with the ECSS, including sports sciences, research and evidence based practice. Our clinicians and researchers publish more than 100 peer-reviewed articles every year. Our main topics of interest concern the athletes exercising in the heat, the athlete rehabilitation and physiotherapy, sport cardiology and also Football as attested by this award”. She added:

“Aspetar is also at the forefront of research in environmental physiology, be it in the heat or at altitude. The Athlete Health and Performance Research Centre also focuses on performance optimization and recovery”.

Aspetar has participated as a partner of the ECSS conference for the last three years. During this time, a number of leading medical experts from the hospital have presented a range of topics. This year Aspetar presented a session entitled “Recent developments in altitude and hypoxic training” chaired by Girard Olivier, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne and Prof Schumacher Yorck Olaf from Aspetar. This session included several topics such as: “Does altitude training actually improve endurance performance in athletes?” a critical review of the different methods By Robach, P from France and “Sanguine altitude – overly optimistic or does the evidence stack up?” by Gore, c. from Australia and “Innovations in hypoxic training to maximize physical performance: from endurance athletes…to team-sport players…toward patients” by Millet, g. from Switzerland.