EDITORIAL

Our kids deserve sporting chances

WE love our sport in Geelong.

Every Saturday, thousands of junior footballers, netballers, basketballers, soccer and hockey players take to fields and courts across the region to test their skills against their peers.

In the process, they do far more than that. They hone their skills, they keep fit, they make friends and — possibly most importantly — learn a lot about resilience, team spirit and accountability.

But at what point does healthy competition become a health hazard for young sportspeople?

Are we pushing our kids — or are they pushing themselves — too hard for their junior years and developing bodies?

Research shows anterior cruciate ligament operations on children have soared by 148 per cent in the past decade, with everything from footwear to playing surfaces being investigated to try to explain the shocking rise.

And serious sporting injuries are not constrained to limbs.

Sports Medicine Australia informs us that concussion from sport is most likely to occur in children aged under 12 and a large percentage is overlooked.

Worryingly, just 12 per cent of concussion cases in young people are reported.

Surely we can do better than that? We must. Junior sports clubs AND parents must make it their mission to do so.

Because, while most concussion resolves completely within one to six weeks, there is evidence that in some cases damage to the brain can last for decades after the original trauma, and that multiple concussion can lead to long-term acquired brain injury. Most clubs and parents would agree that no junior football triumph is worth an acquired brain injury.

It is a natural consequence of sport that the most talented and committed kids will try to run faster, kick farther and intercept quicker than their peers. The most determined will put their bodies on the line in their bid to be the best they possibly can be: To win.

Sometimes those kids will be hurt as a consequence.

It is pleasing sports medicine and science specialists are turning their attention to stemming the injury rate among young athletes as a priority — and are, indeed, doing so this weekend in Geelong as part of a major symposium.

But at grassroots level — as mums and dads and as coaches, first-aiders and team managers — it is our duty to do more to beat back these shocking injury statistics.

It’s nice to watch our kids succeed on the sporting field, but the price of that success is very high if and when they are left with lasting injury.