International consensus statement on injury and illness reporting in professional road cycling

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Road cycling is a very common recreational and elite sport. To facilitate consistent reporting of injuries and illness in professional road cycling we want to establish terms, definitions, and methods for injury and illness reporting in elite road cycling epidemiology studies, similar to other sports.

Aims/objectives

The aim of this study is to establish an international expert statement for injury and illness reporting in professional road cycling.

Methods

We initially conducted a literature review of the injury and illness epidemiology studies in sport and identified popular terms, definitions, and methods which could be applied to road cycling. These terms were then reviewed by our expert panel, with clarification of terms and definitions and additional terms added, if required. The final consensus statement was then agreed by all authors.

Results

The relevant definitions for use in professional road cycling epidemiology studies have been agreed. Injury rates should be reported as per 1,000 hours of cycling training, both in and outdoors, and per 1,000 hours of competition as well as per 1,000 hours of non-cycling training.

Discussion

We encourage authors to use this expert paper when undertaking injury and illness epidemiology studies in professional road cycling to increase the rigor of the studies as well as allowing comparability between different road cycling studies and epidemiology studies in other sports.

KEYWORDS:

• Consensus statement
• injury and illness reporting
• road cycling
• incidence
• prevalence

What is already known

• Other sports, including cricket, football, and rugby, have published consensus statements for injury and illness reporting in their respective sports.

• Professional road cycling does not currently have an injury and illness expert statement for reporting injuries and illness.

• An expert statement around injury and illness reporting in sports facilitates consistent reporting of injuries and from this data, then allows development of injury and illness prevention programs and monitoring the implementation of prevention programs.

What this study adds

• This paper is the first expert statement for injury and illness reporting in professional road cycling.

• We hope that this expert statement is adopted by researchers in the field of road cycling injury/illness epidemiology studies and can be improved and updated as studies are published in this area.

Data sharing statement

All data have been included in the review and is free to be shared and published.

Disclosure statement

NH, RN and IS are currently or have been previously employed by Team Sky and Team INEOS World Tour Professional Cycling teams. NJ is the head of medicine for British Cycling.

Endorsements

This paper has been endorsed by the world governing body of cycling, the UCI.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.