Swedish project wins 2008 Innovation Award

Swedish project wins 2008 Innovation Award | 23.10.2008

Carl Askling (r) with (r-l) Awards Jury Chair Sylvia Barlag, former European
Athletics Vice President Agoston Schulek and European Athletics President
Hansjörg Wirz at the European Athletics Awards Dinner

Carl Askling and Alf Thorstensson from the Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm have won the top prize in the 6th edition of the European Athletics Innovation Awards for their project entitled "Hamstring Muscle Strain in Sprinters".

The award was announced at the European Athletics Awards Dinner in Amsterdam on 18 October.

"The paper by Dr Askling and Dr Thorstensson is one of the first to systematically characterise and follow-up acute hamstring injuries, a problem that affects many elite sprinters and has been known to end careers," said Dr Sylvia Barlag (NED), the chair of the awards jury.

"Their findings improve the understanding of how to best treat such injuries and the ability of medical personnel and coaches to predict recovery time."

The award includes a prize of 10,000 Swiss Francs.

Chair of the Jury Dr. Sylvia Barlag with Carl Askling

Askling and Thorstensson's project had earlier been named the winner of the awards' Open category. Other category winners were "Biomechanical Aspects of Training Means Selection in Track and Field Jumps" by Mikhail Shestakov (RUS) in the Coaching category, "The SPAR Athletics SPARK" by William Anderson (GRB) in the Promotion category.

Each category winner will receive a prize of 2,000 Swiss Francs.

The jury also recognised eight project entries with certificates of Honourable Mention. A complete list of award winners is available here .

The competition attracted a total of 22 entry files from 12 countries.

Judging was conducted by an eight member international jury.

The European Athletics Innovation Awards were created in 1998 to encourage research and the sharing of new ideas leading to the promotion and development of the sport of athletics.

The competition is open to European sport scientists, academics, coaches and students. The next edition of the awards will be in 2010.

Click here to download the winning projects

For further information contact Member Services Manager Bill Glad (email: bill.glad@european-athletics.org).