CommunicationPublished on 25 May 2023

SFISM Colloquium on Women in Elite Sport

Female athletes have different physical and psychological prerequisites than male athletes when it comes to athletic performance. Despite this, only six per cent of all scientific studies on sport are specific to women. The colloquium, which was organised by the Swiss Federal Institute of Sport Magglingen (SFISM) together with Swiss Olympic, informed participants about existing services for Swiss female athletes, presented practical teaching examples on the topic from the SFISM and highlighted research projects in Norway focusing specifically on women in sport.

Female athletes are speaking more and more openly about menstruation or about other occasions when their ability to perform is compromised. Nonetheless, addressing issues specific to women in sport is still anything but a matter of course. Open communication between female athletes and those they are closest to in sport, i.e. their coaches, is a key factor in optimising athletic performance, however.

FastHER/SmartHER/StrongHER

As part of the Women in Elite Sport project, Swiss Olympic has established a contact point and provides guidance for female athletes. The project focuses on topics that are specific to women and relevant to performance in terms of training, nutrition and rest. Maja Neuenschwander, head of the Athlete Hub at Swiss Olympic, informed the participants about the platform, which serves to build knowledge and make it available in various forms and through a number of channels. The platform also provides concrete guidelines. Adrian Rothenbühler from the Sports Coach Education Switzerland spoke about the link between theory and practice, and explained the three-step model for menstrual-based training.

Communication with female athletes

Monika Kurath, who also works at the competence centre and is an SFISM lecturer, cited concrete examples that she uses in class to show how she integrates the topic of women in elite sport into teaching, and how interacting and communicating with female athletes contributes to their empowerment.

Women-specific projects in Norway

Professor Øyvind Sandbakk of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) in Trondheim provided an insight into top-level sports culture in his country. In his keynote speech (The Female Endurance Athlete: Exploring the missing link in exercise physiology), he presented the FENDURA project, a major female-specific research project conducted by several Norwegian universities. The project includes a number of studies examining gender-specific aspects in training and competition, performance development, training management, physiological and mental requirements and in personal interaction with women athletes. The data collected in these studies provide new insights into the physiology-based performance of top female athletes.

Women in Elite sport

Menstrual-based training

Communication

Empowerment

FENDURA