Background. Describing the frequency, severity, and causes of sports injuries and illnesses reliably is important for quantifying the risk to athletes and providing direction for prevention initiatives. Methods. Time-loss and/or medical-attention definitions have long been used in sports injury/illness epidemiology research, but the limitations to these definitions mean that some events are incorrectly classified or omitted completely, where athletes continue to train and compete at high levels but experience restrictions in their performance. Introducing a graded definition of performance-restriction may provide a solution to this issue. Results. Results from the Great Britain injury/illness performance project (IIPP) are presented using a performance-restriction adaptation of the accepted surveillance consensus methodologies. The IIPP involved 322 Olympic athletes (males: 172; female: 150) from 10 Great Britain Olympic sports between September 2009 and August 2012. Of all injuries ( ), 216 were classified as causing time-loss, 346 as causing performance-restriction, and 3 were unclassified. For athlete illnesses ( ), the majority ( ) resulted in time-loss (270) compared with performance-restriction (101) (7 unclassified). Conclusions. Successful implementation of prevention strategies relies on the correct characterisation of injury/illness risk factors. Including a performance-restriction classification could provide a deeper understanding of injuries/illnesses and better informed prevention initiatives. 1. Introduction Recognition of the importance of injury and illness epidemiology research has grown in the last 10 years with international governing bodies of sport and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) regularly conducting surveillance studies at major sporting events [1–10]. The prevention of injuries and illnesses and the long-term protection of athletes’ health are key factors influencing this growing interest [11]. In addition to the impact on an athlete’s health, injuries and illnesses also impact on the athletes’ ability to train and perform; these interruptions may affect their preparations for and availability to take part in competitions, which in turn impacts on their ability to achieve lifetime dreams and aspirations of sporting success. Information about the incidence, severity, and nature (location and type) of sports injuries and illnesses are all important, as together they quantify the overall risk of injury and illness to athletes and thus provide information that allows the prevention initiatives to be correctly
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