765 EP034 – Characterisation of injuries and illness in the context of competitive sport in cycling in over the last 5 years

There is a notable lack of information regarding cycling-related sports injuries worldwide, particularly in competitive cycling. The existing scientific literature mainly focuses on recreational activities or in the Olympic context, based on the International Olympic Committee (IOC) survey reports. This study aims to provide insights into the clinical occurrences (injuries or diseases) in competitive cycling by analyzing data collected over the last five years from the National Cycling Federation (GEST) database. The analysis will consider different disciplines, categories, and types of competitions. Understanding the type of injury and the time taken to return to sport and competition is crucial to devising strategies for injury prevention programs. The data analysis considers 177 sporting events from various aspects of cycling, including track, road, BMX, MTB, and para-cycling. These events spanned over 300 days of competitions, a total of 655 clinical occurrences were observed. The study analyses the prevalence of clinical events by modality, traumatic mechanism, distribution by gender, level of competition, and time to return to performance (RTP). The results also quantify the trauma in road cycling not only by relative hours of sporting activity but also by the distance covered. These findings will raise institutional awareness regarding intra-competitive health within the national cycling community. The study will create conditions for increased safety in competitions by coordinating data with organizational stakeholders and implementing injury prevention programs that are more adapted to our community. The expected outcome is an increase in health when practicing sports in competition, reducing the number of injuries and enabling an earlier return to competition.