Veronika Skvortsova at SportMed: 2021 was a busy and very challenging year

09 / 12 / 2021

The 16th edition of the International Scientific Conference on the Current State and Development Prospects of the Elite Sports Medicine – SportMed 2021, which is held on 9-10 December, became a significant event of the conference programme of Russian Health Care Week at Expocentre Fairgrounds.

The conference began with an extended session of the Working Group on the Development of Sports Medicine of the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sport.

Opening the meeting and summarizing the results of the outgoing year, Veronika Skvortsova, Head of the Working Group as well as the Federal Medical and Biological Agency (FMBA) of Russia, noted that 2021 was a busy and very challenging year due to the ongoing pandemic of a new coronavirus infection. But despite the pandemic, biomedical support for our athletes at the Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo, the international Silk Road Rally and other international and Russian competitions was organised under conditions of sanitary and epidemiological tension.

Veronika Skvortsova named one of the most important achievements of the year as the even more united work of the entire team - the coaching staff, the Russian Ministry of Sport, the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committees and the FMBA medical specialists. As a result of this concerted effort, the Russian delegation at the Olympic and Paralympic Games in Tokyo had a zero Covid-19 incidence rate.  

The year 2022 will also see major international competitions, which will be no less challenging than the year before due to the pandemic, continued the Head of FMBA of Russia. These are the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics in China, the World Games in the USA, and the FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Therefore, medical preparation of Russian athletes for these events is already underway.

"Next year, we will also continue implementing the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation on the creation of rehabilitation centres for athletes and the construction of a sports medicine centre in Sochi," said Veronika Skvortsova.

Speaking at the Working Group meeting, Alexey Morozov, Deputy Minister of Sport of the Russian Federation, said that the Ministry's joint work with FMBA of Russia was essential to athletes' performance. He cited the following data as an illustration of the scale of the work:

"We have 16,000 athletes on the list of candidates for the national teams. Of these, depending on the season when certain world championships and youth competitions are held, up to 6,000 are children and juvenile athletes. Every year, 15,000 sports events are held under the single calendar plan of the Ministry of Sport in the Russian Federation and abroad.

The Olympic sports programme is also expanding every year. Therefore, FMBA's activities in the provision of medical services, rehabilitation, prevention and pharmacological support are increasing, as is our shared responsibility. Our points of growth are new techniques and means of recovery, authorised pharmacological support for athletes, and individualised approaches. It is also the adaptation of new sports that are included in the Olympic programme.          

Today, the SportMed 2021 programme held the plenary session "Sports Medicine: Present and Future", the 8th scientific-practical conference "Medical Support for Elite Sports", a meeting of the Sports Medicine Commission of the Russian Ministry of Health Care, as well as thematic sessions and round tables dedicated to perspective approaches to athletes' rehabilitation after Covid-19, sports traumatology and orthopedics and other professional topics.

On the second day of SportMed 2021, the 14th International Scientific Conference of Young Scientists "Topical Issues of Sports Medicine, Physical Therapy, Physiotherapy and Balneology" will be held. Tomorrow's sections and round tables will discuss issues related to sports nutrition, children's sports medicine, legal aspects of admission to sports.

Press Service, EXPOCENTRE AO
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