Suchergebnisse

MuayThai is a combat sport with a growing international profile but limited research conducted into judging practices and processes. Problems with judging of other subjectively judged combat sports have caused controversy at major international tournaments that have resulted in changes to scoring methods. Nationalistic bias has been central to these problems and has been identified across a range of sports. The aim of this study was to examine nationalistic bias in MuayThai. Data were collected from the International Federation of MuayThai Amateur (IFMA) World Championships held in Almaty, Kazakhstan September 2003 and comprised of tournament results from 70 A-class MuayThai bouts each judged by between five and nine judges. Bouts examined featured 62 competitors from 21 countries and 25 judges from 11 countries. Results suggested that nationalistic bias was evident. The bias observed equated to approximately one round difference between opposing judges over the course of a bout (a mean of 1.09 (SE=0.50) points difference between judges with opposing affilations). The number of neutral judges used meant that this level of bias generally did not influence the outcome of bouts. Future research should explore other ingroup biases, such as nearest neighbour bias and political bias as well as investigating the feasibility adopting an electronic scoring system.

In early 2020, the spreading Coronavirus (COVID-19) prompted the government in the United Kingdom to introduce self-isolation and social distancing measures to reduce its transmission. By doing so, opportunities for physical activity were likely reduced, potentially causing detrimental effects to older adults. Therefore, the present study investigated the influence of the initial six weeks of lockdown on physical activity levels, perceived physical function and mood in older adults. A cross-sectional, mixed-methods, observational study was conducted using self-administered, fortnightly online surveys throughout the UK between 21st March–4th May 2020. A total of 117 participants (52 males [age: 76±4 years] and 65 females [age: 76±4 years]) completed all surveys. Highly active older adults (n=58) maintained their activity levels, while those with low (n=7)/ moderate activity (n=52) levels increased their physical activity during lockdown (ps=99.85%). Subsequently, perception of physical function was maintained across lockdown. Although, the aspect of mood; depression increased for both sexes during lockdown (ps=95.90%;>0.3 AU), there was a weak relationship between mood subscales and physical activity. Despite the maintenance/ increase in PA of our sample, depression continued to increase over the course of lockdown.