British Cycling Reveals Concussion Guidance & Powers to Withdraw Concussed Riders from Events
British Cycling has published its first concussion guidance for its event along with rule changes that allow commissaires to withdraw riders from events if they are a safety risk.
The new guidance released by British Cycling is built around the principle ‘If in doubt, sit them out’ with recommendations that those with a suspected concussion be immediately removed from cycling until appropriate treatment can be given. Even after treatment, British Cycling states these riders should not ride again on the same day. Following the Graduated Return to Play (GRTP) protocol, British Cycling says those who have experienced concussion symptoms, no matter how mild, should follow a "progressive programme back to full activity and should not return to competition for at least 21 days."
British Cycling states the guidance is based on the latest evidence and best practices used around the world. The new protocols have been led by Chief Medical Officer at British Cycling, Dr Nigel Jones, who supported the UCI's first concussion policy published in 2020.
The Graduated Return to Play (GRTP) protocol
Alongside the new guidance for riders with concussions, British Cycling has amended its technical regulations giving commissaires and referees the ability to withdraw riders from an event if participating could affect the health of that rider or others.
In the updated rules riders must first withdraw themselves from an event if "they have sustained any injury which could affect their ability to participate safely". Failure to do this allows a commissaire to withdraw them if there is a safety risk.
 | In my time working with the Great Britain Cycling Team we’ve made excellent progress on educating riders, coaches and staff on the risks of concussion, and how we manage them appropriately to ensure that riders take the time they need to fully recover. The guidance for the wider sport which we are publishing today is another really positive step forward, and with the support of our resources and e-learning I hope that we will start to bust some of those stubborn myths about concussion and give people in the sport the tools and knowledge they need to keep riders safe. The message is really clear – for the safety of the injured rider and those they are riding with, if in doubt, sit them out. |
| Recognising the importance of the issue, we’ve been through an incredibly rigorous and collaborative process to arrive at the guidelines published today, and I want to thank our staff, volunteers and colleagues in the wider sector who have offered their invaluable insight and support. Keeping riders in our sport safe will always be our top priority, and we know that the level of understanding about concussion and its impact currently varies hugely across our communities. Our focus therefore now switches to ensuring that the guidelines, our digital learning offer and other resources are seen and shared far and wide. |
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I wonder how this will affect the race schedule. Currently, the WC season is very condensed. Which might be good for southern hemisphere athletes for whom the travel and the stay on the other side of the world is relatively expensive compared to European DH athletes. But it also implies there are bigger consequences to your overall standings if you need to sit out several races or can't properly prepare because of a concussion. Best would probably be if the races are spread out further throughout the year and across the globe. That'd be most fair for all athletes even though it will probably make it more expensive for everyone. But we already had a nice WC series and suddenly Discovery is going to dump even more money into the sport. If there is one thing they could do with that, it is to indeed spread out the series like that and compensate the athletes for that.
Medical help wise, I had a really bad concussion 18 months ago, and went to hospital where the doctor in the ED department literally pressed his thumb on my head and said "you'll be fine, I can't feel anything cracked". 2 days later I was being rushed back for an emergancy CT scan as I couldn't stay conscious. I got zero help from my GP's. I was lucky, this is what I research for a living and knew what to do myself and it still too me 8 months to fully recovery. The lack of knowledge is pretty scary.
Concussions and other brain injuries are serious stuff and should be treated as such. You wouldn't let your rider compete with a broken femur or neck, so why let them compete with an injured brain?
Systems like this can work in a sport like football because there are 100 cameras pointed at the field and any given moment. Part of the protocol there is for doctors and spotters to watch the video where the can see the impact, see if the player was knocked out, etc. In a DH race if a rider takes a slam in a practice run and is briefly knocked out (one criteria for removing a player in the NFL) but then gets up and rides down and says they feel fine, there is nothing the doctor can really do. There just aren't as many eyes on what is happening.
Second is the "independent" doctor. What really makes a doctor independent? They are working for the UCI afterall. And is it always the same doctor? A different local doctor at every race? You could see how this could cause problems as athletes may have issues trusting a random doctor they do not know. In the case of major sports leagues the appointed independent doctors are approved by the players unions before hand to eliminate these kind of issues.
I'm not saying to do nothing, just acknowledging the challenges that go along with trying to regulate these issues. Its not always as simple a solution as we want it to be,
Diagnosing concussion is definitely much trickier. In rugby and I'm sure other sports, players do a baseline cognitive function test while they are healthy. Then when there's a suspected concussion, the player is taking off for what we call a HIA (head injury assessment) where they repeat the same test. The results of that test are then compared with their healthy test results. I'm not sure about the in's and out"s but the test is usually completed within 5 minutes.
Like I said, there are things that can be done, but implementing them in the world of MTB racing becomes a challenge.
But the baselining thing would still have to be worked out for sure.
It's a tough problem for sure. Even the shorter tracks are probably less than 40% covered by cameras, and those aren't even on during practice. I don't think there's ever a world where you could realistically stop a rider from hopping back on the bike to finish the run (maybe the accelerometer starts beeping after a hard hit? idk), but you might at least be able to pull them aside at the bottom for an eval.
Come to think of it, maybe you don't even need to broadcast the data. Maybe it just starts squawking when you go over the limit.
British racers ain’t the only ones whose brains can benefit from this standard.
As someone who has had a number of concussions over the years (from rugby, BMX and MTB) I only wish I knew back then what I know now. Concussions are no joke. Kudos to British Cycling for implementing this. Lets just hope the UCI and other sports governing bodies start to follow suit (NRL and the ARU here have implemented similar protocols but have worded their policies rather poorly)
Also British Cycling released the full guidance here:
www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/media/press/British_Cycling_-_Concussion_Guidelines.pdf
And a Quick Guide here:
www.britishcycling.org.uk/zuvvi/media/education/learnerresources/Concussion_Infographic.pdf
And even and E-learning module:
concussion.britishcycling.org.uk/index.html#/id/63d7d2896c6eb3782e5a49bb
These are really good resources for everyone to use @edspratt these might be worth adding to the main article
My only question is why is this only one national body?
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Vs
www.pce-instruments.com/eu/measuring-instruments/test-meters/data-logger-data-logging-instrument-pce-instruments-accelerometer-data-logger-pce-vdl-24i-3-axis-det_5972498.htm
Further reading regarding problems with the approach: helmets.org/sensors.htm
And I know that people have been asking BC for a concussion protocol for over 20 years!
Pay one more liability buffer and eliminate any semblance of income for the participants.
The only people who make a living are the ones who are making the "rules".
Concussions are real.
Implementing this "protocol" is such garbage.
PAY THE RIDERS!!!
LEARN TO MARKET YOUR EVENT TO CASH MONEY SPONSORS OR DON'T HAVE EVENTS!!!
STOP PUTTING ON HALF ASS EVENTS TO MAKE YOURSELF AND THE SANCTIONING BODY & THE DOCTOR AND THE RESORTS MONEY.
If you can't make your event a legitimate event for racers by PAYING RACERS...stop having them.
Just go ride your damn bike and stop giving it to greedy people hosting a "series".
10 years ago I raced an event with a $10,000 payout to the winner. Instead of people supporting the event...people ran the guy out of the sport because he was chubby and drove a Porsche to the events.
He knew how to pay riders. It's all been a joke since you clowns ran him out of town & started taking peanuts again.
But DH racers like to be poor & cycling federations like to make rules & money and protect themselves from litigation and event organizers like to be racers, not entrepreneurs.
Rather than cycling federations setting minimum payouts, hiring a marketing guru who can educate event organizers on how to run a profitable race that involves a specific focus on outside sponsors & larger cash prizes....they make burdensome rules to choke off racers, strap them of a chance to make income & force organizers to hire and train "professional CTE live time diagnosis specialists" to strip racers of wins, results, opportunities.
@ROOTminus1 what British Cycling is proposing is a "CYA Cover Your Ass" manuever that has nothing to do with riders, racing, bettering the sport or improving the lives of the racers. It's just more money event organizers will have to spend out of their pocket, it will expose more promoters to the liability of being sued for injuries by racers...all the while the federation that should be helping racing, racers, promoters will be blameless, flawless & cash in on any and all events and fees without ever truly raising the bar for racing.
The federation has the most resources to assist our sport in becoming profitable for the racers. But not once will you ever see them do it. They'll charge you to race. Charge you for insurance that strips you of rights. Charge your promoter and expose them to all liability with these concussion mandates.
It's not a good thing for riders and racers. We the racers can help one another at the time of a possible head injury. EMT's are trained to evaluate. Hospitals, doctors and trainers are trained. This is a duplication of service that serves as a burden to the event.
But with that said when Diablo closed and Mountain Creek took over the bike park in 2012, the Diablo owner never refunded anyone who had already purchased a season pass. I remember having to file a fraud claim with my CC company. So in my mind the "greedy" label might be warranted.
And in the end, whatever bad happened we'll never know the exact truth of. But like anything else, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I could be wrong, but pretty sure Mountain Creek pulled a fast one, wanted more money than he could pay to keep his operation running on their mountain...and backed him into a financial corner with no way to recover.
We want to blame a person, but if he was sooooo greedy in the beginning, why did he go to such tremendous and successful effort to create something so special for mountain biking.
People ridiculed him because he was fat. They shamed him because he drove a Porsche to work with a bike rack on top.
I'm not ready to sit back and say a resort made him a fair & reasonable offer to run a bike park. I DOUBT they gave that offer well in advance of their deadline so that he was able to make an educated and informed decision.
If I were to bet, I'm guessing he might have fallen short of projections, the mountain switched it up last minute and he didn't have the financial resources in place to react. Or the mountain simply decided they wanted to take over the project, force him out and run their mountain their way.
He could very well have taken the money and ran on season passes. Or he could have been buried in debts the mountain forced on him by being unwilling to work with him.
Corporations rarely work things out to the best interest of an independent businessman renting space from them.
But at the end of the day, no matter what happened, he took money from customers and didn't deliver the product or service people paid for. Even if he got screwed by Mountain Creek that is an issue between him and MC, not the customers. That is not an excuse to f*ck people out of their money. Whether the motive was greed of not, to take people's money and then just disappear without ever addressing the issue, responding to emails, etc is a scumbag move IMO. There isn't much that is ever going to change my mind on this one.
This seems to be more than just head injuries.
"Failure to do this allows a commissaire to withdraw them if there is a safety risk."
It's laughable to think there is anything resembling proper diagnosis in gravity sports on site.
Before the event organizers ever BOTHER PAYING RIDERS REAL MONEY....they take it away by putting one more EXPENSIVE LIABILITY BUFFER in place of making it a legitimate sport.
You can't invoke high level medical concussion protocols when your sport is only financially viable for THE SANCTIONING BODY and not the PARTICIPANTS.
@BMXrad is 100% right.
EMT's, athletic trainers, doctors and hospitals should diagnose and treat "post" concussion. Placing a burden of excess safety in such a vague matter of injury on the race staff is just one more way to starve events. They'll probably charge the promoter a higher "per rider" fee when they enact this.
They'll cite the need for this concussion protocol as a reason to raise the cost. But there will be a liability waiver that forces the promoter to assume all liability that protects no one but the federation.
Federations should have a staff who can educate race promoters and work with them year round to help create high dollar events with large money outside of the industry sponsors who can increase the rider cash purse to legitimize the sport and produce income for the people taking risks...the racers.
But they just sit around charging money to keep us all poor hobbyists and find ways to dodge any accountability or actually help grow the sport.