It's estimated that globally, 600 million people tune in to watch the Grand National. Last year, Channel 4 reported viewing figures of 10 million, 3 million more than the BBC reported for the FA Cup Final. With the glamour and interest the surrounds national fixtures such as The Grand National, The Cheltenham Festival and Royal Ascot, to the casual observer, the sport of kings looks like a fantastic place to ply your trade.
Recently, sport science has focused lots of attention on weight making sports, particularly combat sports. However, for professional jockey’s the need to maintain a low body mass throughout the season creates a challenge unlike any other in sport.
While professional boxers ‘weigh in’ the day before a fight, Jockeys are required to jump on the scales before every race. This puts huge, consistent pressure on riders, consequently many resort to terrible tactics including dehydration, appetite-suppressants, vomiting, laxatives and a chronic low calorie diet that can have health threatening consequences.
Minimum riding weights in the UK are traditionally low, encouraging Jockeys to push for greater losses in the belief that owners favour lighter riders. The ability to consistently make weight is certainly seen as a sign of professionalism within the industry. But this has led to Jockeys using rapid weight loss techniques. In a study published in 2012, George Wilson and his team showed that Jockeys might lose as much as 4.5kg (around 6.7% of body mass) in under 24 hours in order to secure a ride.
This sort of rapid weight loss can cause a number of issues, from headaches and nausea right through to reported deaths (Centres for Disease Control and Pretension, 1997). Rapid weight loss isn’t the only problem. The transient nature of horse racing and nomadic existence of jockeys means support structures and routines that help other athletes prepare for elite performance are often lacking. It isn’t surprising then that numerous studies report a constant poor quality, low energy diet.
In a follow up study, Wilson et al (2013) investigated a number of biomarkers in professional Jockeys with the belief that their health was at risk because of the lifestyle associated with weight making. Worryingly, their findings supported the hypothesis. A number of riders displayed issues ranging from chronic dehydration, which was described as “not only detrimental to athletics performance but also potentially dangerous to health”, through to vitamin D deficiencies with the potential for “reduced neuromuscular performance”. Perhaps the most sticking finding was reduced bone mass and Calcium levels, well below those recommended for daily health, let alone athletic populations. Osteomalacia was seen in a number of participants which not only increases the risk of fractures but will also inhibit the healing process. Not a great prospect for a professional already at high risk of broken bones due to falls.
Recently it’s been suggested that energy restriction and dehydration can have mental as well as physical consequences. Martin Eubank, part of Wilson et al’s (2013) study, observed higher than average anger, depression and fatigue as well as lower than average levels of vigour. The team have suggested that these negative mood states can be corrected via “dietary intervention” but when weight making is effectively your living, it is a hard balance to find.
Earlier this year John O’Reilly and a team of researchers published ‘in race’ data that found Jockeys were operating at 90% Heart Rate max during races. This demonstrates Jockeys are performing at a level of physicality concurrent with other elite athletes. The team also echoed the results from previous studies regarding reduced bone health, dehydration issues and chronic lack of macronutrients.
O’Reilly‘s research illustrates the incredible challenge that professional jockeys face. They are expected to compete at a physically elite level, often throughout a full day, while enduring sub-optimal nutritional, physiological and psychological states which undoubtedly impact on performance and increase the risk of injury in the short and illness in the long term.
British Horse Racing is taking these finding very seriously and has put together a programme to help educate and support Jockeys in relation to nutrition, training and recovery. They have also raised minimum weights in response to some of the research quoted above. But with constant weight making still at the heart of the profession, the extremes Jockeys are willing to put themselves through, the risks they are willing to accept and the physicality associated with piloting a half ton animal so we can have a flutter surely makes being a Jockey the toughest job in sport.
Leicester City head to Anfield tonight without Claudio Ranieri for their first game since his departure. He becomes this terms fifth Premier League manager to lose his job, following a disappointing defence of last season’s incredible title win.
Ranieri’s departure has divided football. So, should Leicester have stuck by their man or were they right to recognise a performance issue that support and loyalty wasn’t going to fix?
A number of studies have examined the impact of managerial changes across professional sport. Perhaps the most comprehensive in English football was published by Audas et al, in 2002. They examined results and managerial changes from every professional game for almost 20 years. Their model was able to assess the impact of short-term changes, meaning those which occurred within the season, rather than just season to season variations. Interestingly, they found clubs who made changes mid-season actually fair worse than those that don’t.
Last season, 12 premier league managers were sacked, 9 during the season, including 3 managers of 2 eventually relegated clubs, Newcastle and Aston Villa.
Using last season’s example it can be argued, in conflict with Audas and his team, that a managerial switch will work. Swansea, Chelsea and Sunderland were all threatened with relegation when a change was made. If the objective was to avoid relegation, then these changes have to be seen as successful, if only in the short term.
A University of Warwick analysis by Bridgewater (2009), found that managerial changes do create a short term ‘bounce’ on team results. He attributed this to players attempting to impress a new manager to secure future employment. The paper described a ‘honeymoon period’ that would last between 12 and 18 games before performance regressed to pre-change levels.
However, it’s easy to review performance after the event, drawing conclusions about long vs short term benefits. When a club is facing relegation from the increasingly lucrative Premier League as Leicester City is, is there any research to support the decision-making process?
One study which attempted to develop an evaluation model was published by Chris Hope in 2003. Hope’s study, ‘When should you sack a football manager?’ identifies three key variables a club must consider when making a decision regarding the manager’s future:-
Honeymoon – the period during which the club will not consider sacking a manager
Trapdoor – average number of points per game that is expected
Weighting – importance of recent results versus previous performance
The author presents a mathematical model to be used in real time with the above parameters adjusted according to a club’s performance objectives. Hope acknowledged a number of limitations with his model but it marked a quality step into a multifaceted issue that any empirical evidence base would help support.
Bell et al, (2013) published ‘The performance of football managers: skill or luck?’ Building on Hope’s 2003 work, Bell’s model is a complex equation that takes into consideration performance, while also factoring the increased financial influence of the game. This ensures it doesn’t favour managers presiding over expensive squads. Their model uses the flowing six criteria:-
Total player wage bill
Total net transfer fund
Total number of injured players
Total number of suspended players
Total number of unavailable players (e.g African Cup of Nations)
Total number of non-Premier League games
Leicester City increased their transfer spending and wage bill by 82% and 37% respectively on the previous season and while player availability has been reduced, the correlation (.75) between wages and points would more than compensate for this.
When we examine Leicester City’s performances this season, particularly with the weighting given to the last 5 games (as proposed by Hope, 2003), the numbers show that the decision to sack Ranieri was the correct one. According to Hope (2003), a rating below .74 points per game (when adjusted) should result in the sack. Ranieri’s rating was .66……
Those that believe Leicester City should have stuck by Ranieri are arguing for a season long ‘Honeymoon period’ following the title win. This is a reasonable position to take, particularly for a fan. But in the increasingly commercialised Premier League, the numbers justify the owners decision to let Claudio go.
The ageing process begins to induce a decline in male physical ability around the early 30’s. Borgest and a team of researchers in Australia highlighted the naturally occurring declines in metabolic, cardiovascular and hormonal systems as the precursors for performance decrements in their review study of 2015. These genetic factors cannot be escaped. And while, in well-trained populations, the performance effects often do not become significant until their early 40’s, In the tiny margins of elite sport any decline can become evident very quickly.
As English football enters the most congested period of the season all the usual debates about player fatigue and injury prevention have started. Managers talk about player welfare and the need for ample recovery time. Add to this the increasing tactical maturity of the Premier League and it is not surprising that managers, coaches and players often voice disapproval regarding the short turnaround times between games at this time of year.
European competition has returned this week, after another hectic weekend in the Premier League. Chelsea have now opened up a three-point gap at the top of the table. So as teams prepare for the busy December and January playing schedule, it is no surprise that the ‘benefits of not being in Europe’ theories have begun to take shape.
It has been an interesting week in the world of high performance sport. At the Association of National Olympic Committees awards in Doha, Team GB’s Hockey success was again recognised via winning the best female team of Rio 2016. The shortlist for the IAAF athlete of the year was cut to three with Britain’s Mo Farah still in the running. Not to be outshone, football weighed in with its own take on how to recover/prepare for the stresses of professional sport by putting sex and booze under the microscope.
