Moving forward with steady strokes in paralympic sports medicine

We have just returned from the 5th IOC World Conference on Prevention of Illness and Injuries in Sport in Monaco. As always, it was great to meet old and new colleagues in sport and exercise medicine, listen to interesting talks, and participate in the workshops. The new sessions on Paralympic sports medicine were highlights for many of us. The extra challenges of taking care of paralympic athletes are highlighted by Melbourne’s Liam West et al ( see page 1050 ) in their editorial on how to manage concussion in disability sport. In another editorial, Tweedy et al ( see page 1048 ) discuss how enabling technology can improve the performance of paralympic athletes, to such an extent that take-off velocity of a unilateral below-knee amputee with a long jump-specific prosthesis is higher than that of able-bodied athletes. Strikingly, the athlete with a disability has a personal best that would have won Gold at the London Olympics. …