Expansion of global sports testing is of paramount importance to me personally and the team at Academy League. At the moment, testing and control of procedures and data collection is erratic at best with different codes using different tests and different countries having different ways of measuring these tests, therefore continuity is non-existent.
Academy League is now driving global standards to create a governance over the results and testing procedures, something that has been tried time and time again by localised federations and sporting institutes without success.
We spoke to many performance professionals, coaches and sports scientists during the expo with 100% agreeing with our philosophy and direction as a company and supporting its growth to aid their roles in talent identification and development of athletes weaknesses for the overall gain to the sport.
When presenting to a forum of approximately 60 delegates, I reiterated the simple error in testing a 20m acceleration drill and it was met with nods of approval and concern over methods used within the industry. If an athlete starts just 50cm behind the line in a 20m acceleration, their result is 23% faster in the first 5m, 18% faster over 10m and an astonishing 11% quicker overall. Now, if we are looking for the 1%ers, then a simple lack of care when testing means the resulting data is ready for the bin.
"Poor management in = poor data out and this is clear at all bar elite sporting clubs"
Academy League used the launch to reiterate
our attention to detail at every level joking that
it is irrelevant if you are Wayne Rooney or little
Jimmy, you will be testing exactly the same way.
Overall a great show, an excellent launch and
some very exciting times ahead for the Academy
League network.
Graham