The Incidence of Injuries in Development Short Track Speed Skaters Part 1: On Ice

Short track speed skating is a sport that has enjoyed recent notoriety as one of the more exciting events currently taking place at the Olympics. Children entering the sport continue to engage in this physically demanding, organized sports despite the lack of physical readiness both on and off the ice during training and competition, predisposing themselves to injury. This study identifies injuries associated with development speed skaters during competition in Alberta. The analysis considers Characteristics of Competition: Date (time during season), location of competition, Competition Level, Rink Size, and Protocol (sprints/distance first). Data also included characteristics of fall: Distance of Race, Situation of Injury, Type of Injury, Location of Fall on the Track, and Location of Impact with Pads of racing on a 100m track. Using a principal component analysis, 3 Factors were identified that make up 57.87% of the variance. Factor 1 was related to Date of Competition (-0.762) and made up 21.79% variance; Factor 2 was related to Rink Size (0.804) and Protocol of Racing (0.763) and made up 21.55% of the variance, Factor 3 was related to Zone of Impact (0.851) and made of 14.58% of the variance of the data. A model to predict Injury Type was created using the results of the PC analysis (F = 3.77; p = 0.006). The Tukey HSD Post Hoc test indicated that hitting mats safely no injury (p = 0.02), hitting mats improperly no injury (p <0.001), serious bone (p = 0.001) and concussions (p = 0.001) could be predicted by parameters identified in the model.