european college of sport science

Thursday, June 25th, 2009
of children’s sports activities. In recent times especially the competitative rearing ambitions have been criticized whereas goals like participation
for all have been emphasized as the primer aim. Other questions have been the role of parents and children’s inclination and
discomfort in connection to sports.
Previous research on football for children and young people has demonstrated that political intentions emphasizing sports for all and a
rearing focused on democratic values has justified governmental financial support to children’s and young people’s sports activities.
Despite this, children within the football associations are often raised with values connected to competition and marginalization (Peterson
1993). Furthermore, children’s sports environment is very authoritarian (Redelius 2002). Rearing within the sports movement is also a
question of gender. Generally sports has been connected to men and masculine values (Olofsson 1989; Hjelm 2004; Larsson 2005;
Hedenborg 2008). A study of rearing activities within football has demonstrated that quite young boys are met by a masculinity constructed
in opposition to homosexuality and femininity (Fundberg 2003). Whether the same values can be, and have been, seen in
equestrian sports is questioned in this paper. Furthermore it is argued that the target of rearing can be connected to gender. A question
raised is whether the target of rearing can explain the feminizing process within equestrian sports.
Annual reports from one of the equestrian organizations (Ridfrämjandet), interviews with two persons who have been working with
education within this organization and letters from children sent to a children’s magazine are used as source material. The latter is of
specific interest as this source material will reflect children’s own experiences and view of the rearing aims.
NO SENSE OF PLACE? TRANSNATIONALITY AND IDENTITY IN FOOTBALL
HOGNESTAD, H.
TELEMARK UNIVERSITY COLLEGE
This paper discusses globalization and perceptions of cultural differences in football. The consumption of football and the experience of
the game’s social and physical places (stadiums, streets, pubs) will be scrutinized with examples drawn from studies in Northern Europe.
Debates around globalization in football is further highlighted through moral and political calls for the protection of “our” (national) talents
and restrictions on the number of “foreign” footballers. These issues are particularly evident in debates which seeks to promote the interests
of national team football against an increasingly commodified international club football.
In this paper I shall particularly discuss the ways in which football supporters apply notions of ‘who we are’ and ‘who we are not’ within
the cultural complexity of contemporary football. The paper also seeks to delve into the issue of how these orientations can be linked to
more general social, racial and cultural issues.
17:15 - 18:45
Invited symposia
IS-BC04 Genomics and Exercise: Signals and Mechanisms of Training Adaptation, a Systems Biology
Approach (ACSM Exchange Symposium)
A SYSTEMS BIOLOGY APPROACH TO DECIPHERING THE MOLECULAR BASIS FOR AEROBIC ADAPTATION IN HUMANS
TIMMONS, J.A.
RVC, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
Complex organisms have evolved to incorporate the benefits of the steep thermodynamic gradient afforded by atmospheric oxygen and
to deal with the obligatory reactive nature of oxygen chemistry. This implies that the link between aerobic capacity and disease may
reflect gene-environment interactions that have evolved to regulate the safe transport or consumption of molecular oxygen for the purpose
of energy transfer. This may also explain why low aerobic capacity ( 2max) is one of the strongest risk factors for development of
cardiovascular disease and premature death in mammals. Exercise, the sole strategy for increasing aerobic capacity in humans, is
ineffective in a significant number of people(1). The molecular governors of a low or high propensity for aerobic capacity adaptation are
unknown, and population genetics alone has not easily resolved the genetic variants that quantitatively contribute to cardiorespiratory
adaptation. We previously produced the first protein coding genome-wide analysis of human muscle adapting to aerobic training(2).
From this we identified that molecular approaches (e.g. KO mice) involving single-gene in vivo manipulations demonstrate little genuine
connection with the complex physiological process we noted in humans. To further explore our observations we developed a new strategy;
combining the power of natural biological variation, across four independent human studies, with gene-chip profiling (n=120) to
facilitate molecular predictor analysis. A 29 gene transcript signature, established at baseline in young sedentary subjects, was able to
blindly predict the magnitude of aerobic adaptation in young active subjects, and in middle-aged subjects with metabolic syndrome and
this led to the identification of genetic variation in 6 genes in the HERITAGE study population which associated with gains in aerobic capacity.
We verified that a pro-angiogenic network activation associated with the magnitude of aerobic adaptation in humans (and in rats
artificially selected for a low or high response to aerobic training). Parallel protein coding RNA and microRNA (miRNA) analysis with independent
bioinformatics identified transcription factors that coordinate muscle adaptation, while conservation of gene-network activation
across physiological states and species underscores the robustness of our analysis. The utility of expression profiling to focus genomewide
association studies is thus exemplified by our study, while the ability to predict aerobic adaptation in humans, has promise for
facilitating personalized medicine and defining therapeutic targets for enhancing aerobic capacity.
1. C. Bouchard, M. R. Boulay, J. A. Simoneau, G. Lortie, L. Perusse, Sports Med 5, 69 (Feb, 1988).
2. J. A. Timmons et al., Faseb J 19, 750 (May, 2005).
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