SETU proudly hosted 'The Female Athlete – Lessons from High Performance Sport' event at its Carlow campus on 5 March.
The event was organised by Dr Paula Fitzpatrick, Lecturer in the Department of Health and Sport Sciences and Niamh Bradley O’Connor, PhD Researcher in HealthCORE at SETU. The aim of the event was to learn from high performance sport practitioners on their experiences in working with female athletes.
Funded by SETU Research Connexions, the event was open to students, postgraduates, researchers, academics, practitioners and coaches. Leading practitioners from Team Ireland provided insights into their experiences of working with high performance female athletes.
Dr Paula Rankin, the Head of Faculty of Science and Health Sciences at SETU, opened the conference by welcoming all attendees to campus.
Discussions on the day highlighted the impact of scientific research and applied practice, in elite female athletic performance. Participants learned more about nutrition, physiology, psychology, performance analysis and the impact of working as part of a multidisciplinary team to improve performance.
Bridging research and practice
As an early career researcher, we are always told to consider the wider impact of our research and how our research outputs could be practically applied. This event was a great opportunity for leading practitioners to share their experiences within the field, but also for us researchers to showcase the work we are doing.
It keeps the bridge between research and practice strong and enhances how we can practically translate female research into the real world. It’s even better now that we have stronger research outputs specific to the female athlete, and we can celebrate working with female athletes on weeks like this - Women in Sport week.
Niamh Bradley O’Connor PhD Researcher in healthCORE at SETU
This event was a great celebration of elite female sport science research and practice in Women in Sport week. We heard such interesting case studies and experiences from practitioners working at the highest level of sport in Ireland. I think it was an excellent way to give our SETU students a taste of what it’s like to work with Olympic and Paralympic athletes, something they may work towards in the future. It was also hugely insightful to see the level of detail, research and athlete support behind chasing that elusive ‘Olympic/Paralympic dream’.
Dr Paula Fitzpatrick Lecturer in the Department of Health and Sport Sciences
Speakers
Participants heard from several keynote speakers who shared insights and lessons learned from their own industry experience.
Among the speakers was Dr Sharon Madigan, Head of Nutrition at Sport Ireland Institute, Cliodhna O'Connor, Head of Athletic Development at Irish Women's Hockey, Jo-Anne Browne, Clinical Sport Psychologist at Sport Ireland Institute and Brian McClelland, Performance Analyst at Sport Ireland Institute.
Participants also heard from postgraduate researchers across both the Carlow and Waterford campuses including Niamh Bradley O’Connor, Aoife Russell, Laura Linanne, Maeve Mannion and Andrew Lane.
Next steps
Through shared collaboration and learning, the hope of the event is to create a more collaborative environment for those working with and researching female athletes. The FASTr (Female Athlete Science Translated) research group in SETU are dedicated to progressing female athlete research and communicating the practical applications of that research. The FASTr group would hope to run similar events in the future with that goal in mind.
