A springboard for sports science
The Olympic Games Munich 1972 provided the catalyst for advances in sports science on a domestic and international level. The changes made nationally continue to benefit German sport today.
Germany’s athletes enjoy enviable support in their efforts to be the best, receiving detailed information that is the result of research into a wide variety of sport science subjects. These range from stress analysis and the ability to peak at the right time to sleep optimisation and stroboscopic visual training for badminton players.
In 2020, some 3,700 athletes across the country, from junior to Olympic level, benefited from such research, which has played an integral part in Germany’s rise to become one of the world’s leading sporting nations. Since reunification in 1990, it has never finished outside the top 10 nations at the Olympic Summer Games and has three times topped the medal table at the Olympic Winter Games.
This sustained success can be traced back to West German government’s increased investment in sport science in the years leading up to the Olympic Games Munich 1972 and to the creation of the Bundesinstitut für Sportwissenschaft – BISp (Federal Institute for Sport Science) in 1970. The BISp continues to operate today, instigating, promoting and coordinating research into sport science and applying the findings on a practical level to high performance sport, talent development, sports equipment, doping analysis and the general development of sport and physical activity in Germany.
In 2020 alone, the BISp was engaged in 104 research projects, with topics ranging from the effects of Covid-19 on high-performance sport to eye tracking in Olympic shotgun shooting. The body also organises and supports symposiums, workshops and seminars and takes part in major sports policy gatherings as part of its extensive networking activities.
Sports science was at the heart of a notable international development at Munich 1972, which saw the introduction of a standardised doping control protocol, with drug testing being carried out in all sporting disciplines. Mass spectrometry (MS) was introduced as a means of identifying doping substances, while many national and international federations adopted the standards set at the Olympic Games in 1972. Many of the testing regulations introduced there remain in effect today. Munich 1972 also acted as a catalyst for increased research into doping.