Olympic Games in Paris 2024 and Medical Planning

In this symposium you will meet the IOC Games Group consisting of various experts from areas important for planning an Olympic Game. You will learn what to expect in Paris of injuries and illnesses i.e what we are planning for based on previous Games since London 2008. Your will learn about the Paris preparation from the Chief Medical Officer of Paris. In the times of Covid you will learn about the Public Health surveillance in the Games followed by the venue medical care and the mitigation tools for heat in Paris. Oral health and dental care are important for the athletes. How do we prepare for that? Safeguarding has become increasingly important in sports. You will learn how the IOC keeps the environment safe. Mental Health issues were in the forefront in Tokyo and Beijing. Learn bout the IOC new tools in this field. Finally, the plan for physiotherapy, pharmacology and imaging in Paris. Each of the parts will be followed by a Q&A.

Date: Tuesday 4 July, 10:00 - 11:30, 11:45 - 13:15
Lecture room: Amphitheatre Bordeaux

Chair:

Richard Budgett
Director
Medical and Scientific Department
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Lars Engebretsen, MD PhD Professor Em
Orthopedic Clinic,
University of Oslo
Co-Chair, Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center
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International Olympic Committee
Head of Scientific activities

What medical challenges are expected in the Games?
Objective: To describe the incidence of injuries and illnesses sustained during the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games from 23 July to 8 August 2021.
Methods: We recorded the daily number of athlete injuries and illnesses 1) through the reporting of all National Olympic Committee (NOC) medical teams and 2) in the polyclinic and medical venues by the Tokyo 2020 medical staff.
Results: In total, 11 315 athletes (5423 women, 48%; 5892 men, 52%) from 206 NOCs were followed prospectively for the occurrence of injury and illness. NOC and Tokyo 2020 medical staff reported 1035 injuries and 438 illnesses, equalling 9.1 injuries and 3.9 illnesses per 100 athletes over the 17-day period. Altogether, 9% of the athletes incurred at least one injury and 4% at least one illness. The injury incidence was highest in boxing (27%), BMX racing (27%), BMX freestyle (22%), skateboarding (21%), karate (19%), and handball (18%), of which both BMX freestyle and skateboarding were new events, and lowest in diving, road cycling, rowing, marathon swimming and shooting (1-2%). Marathon and artistic swimming presented the highest illness incidences (both 8%), followed by skateboarding and karate (both 7%). In the study period, COVID-19 affected 18 athletes, accounting for 4% of all illnesses and 0.16% of all athletes. Exertional heat illness affected 78 athletes (18% of all illnesses, 0.7% of all athletes), the majority (88%) resulting in no time loss from sport.
Conclusion: Overall, 9% of the athletes incurred an injury and 4% an illness during the Games. Comprehensive countermeasures helped mitigate both COVID-19 and exertional heat illnesses.

Philippe Le Van
Chief Medical Officer Paris 2024

What is the role of the medical department of the organizing committee during the Olympic Games?
For Paris 2024, the FA MED (Functional Area medical), is part of a larger group called SVC for Services to the Games. In this set is found, accommodation, transport, logistics, mobility, accreditation, catering cleaning and waste.
The tasks to be carried out are numerous, to create a polyclinic with 2 MRI, radio table, ultrasound, service of unscheduled care medicine, open 24/7, specialized consultations in sports medicine, orthopedic surgery, gynecology, cardiology, etc., a dental service with 7 chairs, an ophthalmology service, and physiotherapy and massage, to take care of the 10500 Olympic athletes and 4400 Paralympic athletes. To take care of the 400 very high-level horses, present on the Versailles site with qualified veterinarians.
We have to provide medical care for 32 Olympic sports, including 4 additional sports (climbing, surfing, skateboarding and breakdancing), which means that we have 48 disciplines spread throughout the country (soccer, sailing in Marseille, handball in Lille, shooting in Chateauroux and surfing in Tahiti) and 22 Paralympic sports. We also take care of the Olympic family, the media, the 45,000 volunteers and the entire workforce. We facilitate the arrival of foreign medical delegations, import of medicines, recognition of medical practice in France by changing French law. Our role is also to preserve the health of all by monitoring the heat waves and any diseases that could contaminate all those present.
Medicalizing the biggest event in the world in terms of participation and duration requires a collaboration with all the national and international public and private actors (IOC, IPC, WHO) to keep in good health all the participants.

Brian McCloskey PhD
IOC Medical & Scientific Commission Games Group
Senior Consulting fellow, Global Health Programme, Chatham House, London
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Public Health Surveillance at the Olympic Games
The presentation will review the experience and lessons from public health surveillance at the Olympic Games from 2012 – 2022. It will examine the rationale for the surveillance, the systems used, the challenges of the Olympic context and what we found. It will also consider what we have learned and the potential implications for Paris 2024.

Dr. Davic Zideman
International Olympic Medical and Scientific Commission Games Group
Thames Valley Air Ambulance, UK
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IOC Games Group Emergency services: Planning Venue Medical Care
The provision of an effective and efficient medical service to all client groups at an Olympic Games is a key function for delivery by the host country’s organising committee. The organising committee is guided through the process by the International Olympic Committee Medical and Scientific Commission Games Group, with specific sport requirements provided by the participating Internationals Federations.
The medical service is centred on the Olympic Village Polyclinic, which supports the national Olympic committees’ medical teams through the provision of basic and advanced medical specialities. The provision of emergency medical services is spread across all Olympic competition and training venues and encompasses not just athletes and officials, but all client groups including spectators, VIPs, media and workforce.
For competing athletes, the venue emergency medical service is provided by the field of play medical teams, supported by the medical team in the athlete medical room. The field of play team comprise of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals with complementary skills to provide pre-hospital emergency medicine in a sport environment. They must be carefully selected, experienced in pre-hospital medicine and sport’s medicine, fully equipped, and properly trained and rehearsed to undertake this task in a complex and difficult environment.

Sebastien Racianis
Head of Research
Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Hospital
Doha, Qatar
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Heat illness - prevention and management
This talk will discuss the prevention and management of heat illness during international events such as the Olympic games; from the perspective of the IOC, the IFs, the LOC and other major stakeholders.

Ian Needleman
Professor
University College London
Eastman Dental Insitute
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Oral health and dental care at the Olympic Games
This presentation will summarise the oral health data and performance impacts from London 2012 and other games. It will review trajectory for oral healthcare needs and consider likely scenarios for Paris 2024.

Chair:

Tine Vertommen, PhD
Expert Consultant to the IOC Safe Sport Unit
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Safeguarding at the Olympics
As the global Olympic movement has grown, so too has awareness of the need to address violence in sport and safeguarding all members of the Olympic Movement. The IOC’s mission is to place athletes at the heart of the Olympic Movement, and Olympic Agenda 2020+5 has set the strategic roadmap including Recommendation 5: Further strengthen safe sport and the protection of clean athletes. In its Safe Sport Action Plan, the IOC set two objectives to ensure that the Olympic Games are at the forefront in the field of athlete safeguarding and well-being:
1. The IOC to promote that considerations for the safeguarding of athletes are included at every stage of the lifecycle of the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games; and
2. The IOC to promote the values of safe sport amongst athletes and their entourage at the Olympic Games and Youth Olympic Games.
In this presentation, I will present IOC's safeguarding work for the upcoming Paris 2024 Games.

Prof. Dr. Vincent Gouttebarge
Amsterdam University Medical Centers (Department of Orthopedic Surgery and Sports Medicine)
University of Pretoria (Section Sports Medicine)

Promotion and protection of mental health during the Olympic Games and the IOC consensus statement
Mental health symptoms and disorders are common among elite athletes. Therefore, based on a thorough review of the available scientific literature and on the input of 27 international experts during a 2.5-day meeting, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) published in 2019 the first consensus statement on mental health in elite athletes and created their Mental Health Working Group (MHWG). Subsequently, the IOC MHWG developed various resources in order to promote and protect the mental health of athletes during the Olympic Games. Among others, the IOC MHWG developed the IOC Sport Mental Health Recognition Tool 1 (SMHRT-1) and IOC Sport Mental Health Assessment Tool 1 (SMHAT-1), while awareness campaigns and mental health support were made available in the most recent Olympic Games.

Marie Elaine Grant
PT PhD, Specialist Chartered Physiotherapist
Associate UCD Institute of Sport and Health
IOC Medical & Scientific Commission

Physiotherapy at the Olympic Games
The protection of the health of the athlete is the core objective of the International Olympic Committee (IOC)Medical and Scientific Commission. During Olympic Games, the combined group of physical therapists from the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and the hosts ́ Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games (OCOG) form the single largest professional group working for athlete health protection. While the role of a sports physical therapist traditionally has been to provide treatment and rehabilitation of injuries, the advancing role of the physical therapy profession is to also provide interventions on injury prevention, athlete recovery, and to support athlete performance. Also, physical therapy and the other disciplines osteopathy, chiropractic, and sports massage, have become a greater integral part of the sports medicine team, and thereby essentially contribute to a comprehensive approach for the care of the athlete. A multidisciplinary team approach makes use of knowledge and expertise of different disciplines to provide better health-care for the athlete.
During this session the key objectives and requirements of Olympic Physiotherapy and a multidisciplinary approach aimed at meeting the requirements of athletes at the height of competition will be discussed.

Mark Stuart
Pharmacist
IOC Medical & Scientific Commission, Games Group

Improving safe and effective use of medicines at the Olympic Games
A presentation of the initiatives the IOC Medical & Scientific Commission have put in place to ensure international standards and best practice for pharmaceutical care of athletes at the Olympic Games.

Bruce Forster
Professor, Dept of Radiology
UBC Faculty of Medicine
Member, IOC Medical and Scientific Games Games Group
Co-Chair, National Artificial Intelligence Council in Healthcare
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Imaging at the Olympics
During this presentation, the role of imaging in support of the athlete and their team will be discussed, including the strategic siting of equipment and staff, the potential role of field of play imaging, and modality volumes expected at the Games. Recent imaging research conducted at the Games will be reviewed.

Olympic Games in Paris 2024 and Medical Planning

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