The year in review—Pushing the boundaries in sport

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Not unlike any other year, 2009 has brought out some amazing stories in sports medicine and sport science. Whilst many of these stories are captured by the media, and in some cases sensationalised, they all pose a range of challenges to researchers, practitioners, and sporting organisations and governing bodies. A few that spring to mind are the win in the women's 800m at the World Athletics Championships by Caster Semenya from South Africa, the massive number of world records broken at the World Swimming Championships, the increasing battle against performance enhancing drugs in sport, the ever-difficult battle against overweight and obesity around the world, and the increased awareness of dubious off-field incidents in professional sport.

The case of Caster Semenya, where it was identified after the event that she had both female and male sexual organs, poses significant ethical and human rights questions? In which events should she compete? Should her win be upheld? Should she be able to compete in women's events? Whilst I do not have any answers to these questions, they are all issues that the sports medicine and sports science community need to ponder.

Who would have thought that 43 world records could be broken in 40 events at a World Swimming Championships? The adoption of a body polyurethane suit has thrown the swimming world into disarray. Should the records have an asterisk next to them so that when these suits are banned the world record books clearly identify this? It could be argued that the sport technology part of our community has simply been looking at ways of advancing performance in sport and have succeeded. How do we continue to create that equal “playing field” in sport whilst at the same time advancing technology?

What about the global overweight/obesity problem and its impact on a range of non-communicable diseases? This is certainly not going away. A plethora of research is tackling this issue from every possible perspective and arriving at some innovative and effective approaches. What is missing, however, is a vital ingredient—an unrelenting buy-in from governments around the world in making some hard decisions on managing this burden. And yes, such a buy-in from government is very expensive and often unpopular with many voters.

Off-field behaviour (the bad type, not the good type) in many professional sports is also continuing to appear in the media. Is it that the incidence is rising or is it that we are simply becoming more aware of it? Given that young athletes often model behaviour from their professional stars and see these athletes as role models, I think that our sport psychology fraternity has an opportunity to intervene with both practice and research.

What about the year in review for the Journal of Science and Medicine in Sport? A big and important year it has been. We have increased our impact factor to 1.913 and demonstrated the largest increase of any journal in the Sports Science category. By the end of the year people around the world will have downloaded around a quarter of a million full text articles from the journal in 2009 alone. We have published regular journal podcasts that address a range of issues in sports medicine and sports science. We have appointed a number of new Assistant Editors that have joined our strong and hard-working team. Finally, we have continued to grow the journal into a truly international publication for practitioners and researchers alike.

In this issue of the journal we continue our broad coverage of research and clinical practice issues with papers covering sports medicine, sports injury, physical activity, exercise physiology, sports science, biomechanics, motor control and learning, and sports nutrition. Do not forget to seek out the latest journal podcast from www.jsams.org, www.medconnect.com.au, or from iTunes.