The challenges of the three-month lockdown were far bigger for active sportspersons than common professionals. An active athlete who sweats out in the field to hone his skills and maintain high levels of competence can’t maintain high competitive skills with “WORK FROM HOME” options.
With the grounds closed, gymnasiums shut and all sports activities around the GLOBE coming to a grounding halt, the professional athletes faced the daunting task to keep themselves physically and mentally fit and inspired.
Elite Sports Management and Dr Dayal Foundation (DDF), realising the challenge, came up with much-need support for the active sports fraternity that was confined to homes due to an unprecedented lockdown, imposed to mitigate the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The idea of an “injury-free sports ecosystem” culminated into the Global Sports Injury Conclave (GSIC), leading to a series of 15 webinars with an unparallel panel of 45 elite sports professionals.
“The basic motive behind conducting the multiple webinars, was to enhance awareness and awake the sporting fraternity,” says Nishant Dayal, Director Elite Sports Management and president, DDF
The webinars focused on sports injury management, niggle free sports, strengthening and conditioning during the lockdown period, human biomechanics and a holistic approach to sports nutrition. Hard to believe, but there was a dedicated session on Ayurveda support for sports.
The journey towards achieving the goal of an “injury-free sports ecosystem” is worth attention of record books on the merit of its numbers alone – not just in terms of volume of experts, but also in the frequency of webinars. Across the 90-day lockdown period, DDF’s initiative got together 45 elite panellists on 12 specialities from across six nations for 15 webinars and one mission – injury-free sports ecosystem, the vision of GSIC
“The Global Sports Injury Conclave was a bold step in injury prevention and cure ecosystem for the Indian athletes. This was a crying need of the hour,” says Ramji Srinivasan,” former strength and conditioning coach of the Indian national cricket team.
The webinars were not mere discussions with some industry experts connecting virtually to share their thoughts on their respective expertise. The methodology in place would befit an educational curriculum.
The series of 15 webinars would each time see a chapter unfolding on a crucial aspect of sports and sportspersons life and journey.
It began with educating sports persons on how to keep themselves relevant even when they are indoors and went on to imparting knowledge on finer aspects of professional sports.
GSIC WEBINARS RUN ORDER
The first two events happened to be as a basic warm-up in sports before the subjects became really intense. The flow chart reads like 1. What To Do When You Are Indoor; 2. Indoor Workouts & Fitness; 3. Indoor Workouts for Sportspersons; 4. Mental Toughness during Lockdown for Sportspersons; 5. Manoeuvring Skill Sets in Lockdown; 6. Seamers – How to be Effective and Injury Free; 7. Batsman- Longevity and Injury-free Cricketing Life; 8. Spinners – Increasing Ability & An Injury-Free Sporting Life; 9. Wicket Keepers – Precision, Persistence & Injury-free Career; 10. Cricketing Gears – R&D and Usefulness towards Injury Free support to Players; 11. How to make Gym more effective with regards to Sportspersons; 12. How to Enhance Self-Motivation & Mental Toughness for Sportsmen; 13 – What is the Important and Necessary Diet for Sportsperson?
“GSIC provided a platform to esteemed speakers and distinguished panellists to uplift an injury-free sports culture in India,” says sports nutrition expert Swati Bathwal. “Your body is not an ornament. It is a vehicle to your dreams. Use it wisely.”
If you thought it all was becoming too technical there was an exclusive session with IPL auctioneer Richard Madley on the league’s journey beyond a decade from Season 1 to 11.
The panel was who is who of the sports world, all synonymous with the field of their respective expertise.
“With the physiotherapist, orthopaedics, trainers, dietitians, nutritionist, sports industry experts and the champion sportspersons we were able to achieve and get the best solutions for the players in these unprecedented pandemic times,” adds Dayal.
“It was a joint initiative from Global Sports Injury Conclave (GSIC) and Elite Sports to get the best heads from the industry. We progressed step by step to have the masters of the trade address the issues.”
A close look at the panel can better describe the class of the conclave, which was accredited by the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, and the Karnataka Medical Council.
A majority of the panellists like Johnty Rhodes, Madan Lal, Chetan Sharma, Sanath Jayasuriya, Danny Morrison, Syed Saba Karim, Maninder Singh, Murali Karthik, Deep Dasgupta, Lalchand Rajput, S Sreesanth, Rajesh Chauhan, Ajay Ratra, Nilesh Kulkarni, Amol Mujumdar, Sonu Sharma and Chetanya Nanda will need no introduction for their exploits in the cricket world.
Then there were industry experts like Ex-Team India strength and conditioning coach Ramji Srinivasan, physio John Gloster, Dr Ali Irani, physio Andrew Leipus, sports dietician Swati Bathwal, Culinary nutritionist from the UK Varun Shivdasani, knee and sports injury expert Dr Divya Prakash, Ayurveda acharya Dr Onkar Bilgi, sports motivational speaker Srinivasan Ramakrishnan, English cricket coach Paul Carrick, performance enhancement coach Amoggh Pandit, Sports physio Dr Sumant SK, international umpire Simon Taufel, cricket industry veterans – Paras Anand, Vineet Sarin, Pushp Kohli and Aditya Mahajan.
The entire show that was managed by Dayal with the support of Uday Veer Singh, vice-president, Elite Sports Management.
The institution behind this epochal initiative, DDF is actively involved in a wide range of philanthropic activities along with Child Heart Operation, supporting sports, underprivileged and orphanages.
“Dr Dayal Foundation has done great work to spread excellence and spirit of surpassing all barriers through the GSIC,” says Ayurveda acharya Dr Onkar Bilgi, a sports specialist in alternate medicine. “Let us not forget that alongside these webinars for sports fraternity, the foundation also did exemplary service to mankind with the help extended to common masses in the times of COVID-19 pandemic.”
The foundation is in the reminiscences of Dr Shankareshwar Dayal, was a medical doctor and a true Philanthropic He came from the well renowned and esteemed Medical family of Patna and served the society along with Dr Rita Dayal, ex-President Rotary Club, Patna and undisputedly was one of the finest gynaecologists in the Patna.
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