SportMed 2022: some results of the year

An extended meeting of the Working Group on Sports Medicine Development of the Presidential Council for the Development of Physical Culture and Sports took place at the Russian Health Care Week International Scientific Conference SportMed 2022 held at Expocentre Fairgrounds.

The meeting was chaired by Veronika Skvortsova, Head of the Working Group and the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia. She summarised some of the results of the outgoing year.

"It is difficult not to appreciate positively what was done in sports medicine in our country in 2022. Despite various restrictive measures against our country, we managed to organise medical and biological support for our athletes at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. We managed to provide full medical support for the international Silk Road Rally in a splendid manner. We took part in medical support for the Winter and Summer Paralympic Open Games ‘We're Together. Sport’, said Veronika Skvortsova.

"In the coming days," she continued, "our colleagues will travel to China again to provide medical support to the Russian athletes at the third Russian-Chinese Youth Winter Games. All this is taking place under sanitary and epidemiological constraints, especially stringent when it comes to the PRC with a population of a billion and a half. You can imagine what an epidemic outbreak in such a dense population would be like. But in less than three years, we have gained a lot of experience in escorting both athletes and members of delegations in such difficult conditions. We have learned how to prevent disease, how to make very strict pre-departure and travel arrangements, and how to provide the necessary medical care in such conditions. 

The Head of the Working Group emphasised that during 2022, FMBA is continuing to implement the instructions of the President of the Russian Federation concerning the improvement of rehabilitation services for athletes and the construction of new rehabilitation centres for sports medicine.  According to her, the Oka rehabilitation centre in the Moscow Region is fully ready and will start receiving athletes in the first quarter of 2023. In the second quarter of next year, a rehabilitation centre in Kislovodsk will open for athletes. This year, design work has begun on a branch of the Federal Scientific Clinical Centre for Sports Medicine and Rehabilitation, which will be localised in Sochi.

The participants discussed aspects of the fight against doping in sport, innovative technologies in sports medicine, and the activities of experimental sites of the Ministry of Sport of Russia.  An award ceremony was held for sports medicine professionals. 

The discussion of topical tasks of national sports medicine within the framework of SportMed 2022 continued after the Working Group meeting at the 9^th Scientific and Practical Conference ‘Medical Support for High Performance Sports’ – the 75th Anniversary of the Federal Medical and Biological Agency of Russia.  The reports of prominent medical scientists, experts of FMBA were devoted, in particular, to the diagnosis and recovery of the morphofunctional status of athletes who have suffered COVID-19, energy metabolism in winter swimming athletes and other topics. 

On the second and final day of SportMed 2022, the 15th International Scientific Conference of Students and Young Scientists "Current Issues of Sports Medicine, Physical Therapy, Physiotherapy and Balneology" was also held. The winners of the conference were awarded upon consideration of the works submitted to the conference by students and young scientists. 

In addition, round tables and thematic sections were held on the interaction between sports medicine and fitness, the development of sports massage in the rehabilitation of athletes, and a Master Class on Posturology in Sports.