The first ever Spring Sport Science Summit will be hosted by the Faculty of Health Sciences at the Potchefstroom Campus of the North-West University (NWU) from 16 to 19 September.
The primary objective of this summit is to invest in academic excellence and promote professional development, especially in the field of sport and coaching sciences. The focus of the summit will be to look at innovations in performance enhancement and injury prevention. It is about cutting-edge sport science.
“Another aim of the summit is to provide academic enrichment by showing and exploring cutting-edge research and information with regard to sport science and coaching science, which is very important. In the world of sport, to keep the edge, you need to know the cutting edge. The summit allows for great networking opportunities and it lays the platform for collaborative projects and partnerships to be explored,” explained Prof Hans de Ridder, director of the School for Human Movement Sciences at the NWU.
“We will start the summit on the 16th with five pre-conference workshops, which promise some very exiting topics and speakers. On the 17th we will start with the conference itself. During the next two and a half days we will have a lineup of four international keynote speakers, and no fewer than 20 invited speakers. We are all exited about this inaugural Spring Sport Science Summit.”
Some of the speakers at the event will include the world-renowned Prof Masa Ito from Japan. “We are so happy that we could find the time in his busy schedule to bring him to South Africa.” Other speakers will be the former president of Sport Medicine South Africa, Dr Phathokuhle Zondi, the director of the NWU’s Centre for Health and Human Performance (CHHP), Prof Pieter Kruger, the current sport scientist for the Springbok rugby team, Timothy Qumbu, the former Springbok and England assistant coach, Matt Proudfoot, the mastermind behind the Varsity Cup competition, Duitser Bosman, and many more.
During the summit there will also be five sport-specific seminars on soccer, rugby, netball, hockey and athletics.
“We want our colleagues to submit an abstract for the conference. Online registrations opened on 1 May. On the website, applicants can find all the necessary links, including that for accommodation at the NWU Sports Village, which is walking distance away from the facilities where the summit will be held. We are looking forward to receiving the abstracts from our colleagues from across the globe and to have them register for the summit as soon as possible. Our faculty is very proud to present this inaugural Spring Sport Science Summit, and we would love to welcome you to our beautiful campus in September,” concluded Prof De Ridder.