Human race: pushing limits and breaking boundaries

After five years of meticulous preparation, the Olympic Games 2012 were a resounding success and unforgettable experience for the UK. Team GB had an extraordinary run of victories, winning 65 medals in the Olympics and 120 in the Paralympics, inspiring a new generation of British athletes. An incredible 849 doctors came to the UK to support their country’s athletes, also raising the profile of sports medicine. But where did this specialty spring from? Joanna Carson, a fourth-year medical student at Edinburgh University, visited the exhibition Human race: inside the history of sports medicine on it’s tour of Scotland to find out.

What is sports medicine?

Evidence of sports medicine has been recorded as early as the second century but, in reality, it’s a brand new speciality, only gaining recognition from the Department of Health in 2005. It is an interesting specialty because it combines preparing and training athletes for sport with treatment of injuries and rehabilitation, and mixes acute medicine with long-term follow-up. Patients can range from Olympic athletes to a local veterans’ football team to children with cerebral palsy.

The Human race exhibition recognised the important part that Scottish doctors and scientists have played in the development of sports medicine.

• James Syme, a groundbreaking surgeon from Edinburgh, carried out Scotland’s first hip amputation and pioneered ankle joint amputation.
• Ian Smillie, an orthopaedic surgeon in Dundee when the NHS was first established, was one of the first to associate playing sport with injury in his textbook, Injuries of the knee joint.
• Thomas McClurg Anderson, a physiotherapist from Motherwell, had particular interest in the movement of the human body, and the relationship to athletic technique and physiotherapy. He filmed athletes from various sports, as well as factory and domestic workers, to study human movements.

These early developments have continued to this day: for example, the Centre for Aquatics Research and Education at Edinburgh University uses underwater cameras and motion capture to analyse and develop swimming technique.

Are humans reaching their physical limits in sport?

As Roger Bannister showed when he ran the four-minute mile, and Usain Bolt in running 100 m in 9.58 s, athletes continue to extend their achievements beyond what doctors and scientists believe to be physiologically possible. As sporting prowess continues to develop, the influence of technology on sporting achievement is becoming more apparent. For example, all-in-one speedo LZR swimsuits help position the wearer higher in the water, and the material reduces drag, allowing the athlete to move more efficiently.

But do some developments give athletes an unfair advantage? Regulation of performance enhancing drugs – such as steroids, erythropoietin, growth hormones, and β2 agonists – is a particular challenge for big competitions like the Olympics and also raises many questions. If athletes are allowed to train at altitude to increase their red blood cell count, why aren’t they allowed to use erythropoietin for the same effect? Likewise, Oscar Pistorius, perhaps the most recognised Paralympian, has been the centre of debate over whether his prosthetic legs give him an unfair advantage over able bodied athletes in his bid to compete in the Olympic Games. He also recently disputed another athlete’s length of blades, claiming they gave him extra stride length.

Sports medicine has helped improve the lives of many

The exhibition highlighted the clear differences between the early, wooden prosthetic leg and the advanced polymer and plastic limbs of the SPEEAD (Sports Prosthetics for Elite and Everyday Athletes with a Disability) project, which are currently being developed at the University of Strathclyde. Similarly, the Bartlett Tendon includes an artificial tendon or muscle to allow above knee amputees to cycle, ski and snowboard.

The dramatic improvements in prosthetic limbs after the First and Second World Wars, together with the developments in sports medicine, have allowed not only athletes, but also those with a wide range of abilities, to benefit from better prostheses. Danielle Bradshaw, who was in a film feature of the exhibition, is a wonderful example of this. Inspired by Oscar Pistorius, and after years of being bullied about her dysfunctional right leg, she elected to have an above knee amputation at the age of 13 years, an operation she looked forward to having because she would be able to run for the first time.

Find out more

The exhibition, Human race: inside the history of sports medicine, is on its final leg of a tour around Scotland and it will be in Dundee until 10 November. Find out more at www.humanrace.org.uk.