Lettres au rédacteur
To the editor:
I have been a member of the Canadian rowing team since 1976 and in that time, I have come to realize many things about international competition. What concerns me is Canada’s direction in the so-called international amateur sports arena.
A wide range of sport systems compete in international competitions. Some are very amateurish in nature (Canada), others very professional (East Germany, the USSR). This is no accident. For whatever reasons,these countries (mostly eastern bloc) have committed themselves to going to great lengths to ensure that their athletes obtain every advantage possible toward achieving their objective which is winning.
Canadians have realized this for years and have known that to be competitive, we must follow suit. And we have done just that with more and more monies from federal, provincial and private sources going to support our international athletes. Although still in its infancy, we have a Ministry of Sport and most sports have organizations or associations which are attempting to mimic the highly professional, organized and efficient systems we compete against.
If it does not bother us that this direction is professionalism in every sense of the word, and when we accept things like the pursuit of excellence as laid out in “Group Wants Changes to Sports System” (Champion, August 1980), then we become just another one of the many countries who contribute to the extinction of any truly amateur competitions.
Melvin Lawrence Laforme
To the editor:
I hope that you will give me the opportunity to quickly rebut the comments of Mr. Charles Francis (Champion, November 1980). The fine article by Paul McLaughlin in the same issue very nicely pointed out the potential benefits of electrical muscle stimulation. There is no doubt that the role of this therapeutic modality in rehabilitation should be researched more as is the case here at the University of Waterloo and also by Dr. W.D. Stanish and colleagues at Dalhousie University.
The real story about muscle stimulation for the athlete is unknown. Surface electrodes used by athletes stimulate primarily the surface muscles. What happens to the deeper muscles? Scientists do not know yet but the potential for muscle development imbalance exists and this could lead to injuries. Some athletes have already experienced this.
Mr. Francis’ comment that weight training should also fall into the category of artificial training is true effort to contort the context of my letter (Champion, August 1980). Obviously the athlete, not the provincial hydro companies, must do the work in weight training.
As for the comment that Dr. David Winter of our department requested $1 million to advance sports performance by computer evaluation of athletes, I’m afraid that the Star misquoted Dr. Winter. Rather, this sum of money would be required to proceed in that direction. A scientific understanding of the principles of athletic performance is essential for the betterment of sport. Monitoring facilities should be available to permit periodic observation of the health status of the athlete, such as hemoglobin levels in female and male athletes.
Further, the coach should be educated to be able to interpret the medical and physiological information. My understanding was that coaches must pass examinations which include a certain level of physiology. I can only hope that Mr. Francis was also misquoted in an interview in Weekend Magazine when he said that Ms. Angella Taylor frequently hits a heart rate of 200 beats/min. in training, saying “This would kill a normal person”. Almost 50 per cent of the population should have a maximum heart rate of 200 beats/min. or more at ages 20-25.
I am glad that my letter created its desired effect; people may now question the validity of electrical muscle stimulation just as they have argued against steroids and amphetamines. Mr. Francis is obviously an excellent technical coach but I hope that he leaves the comments on science to those who know something about it.
Richard L. Hughson, Ph.D.