Yes / Background: The importance of optimal and/or superior vision for participation in high-level sport remains the subject of considerable clinical research interest. Here we examine the vision and visual history of elite/near-elite cricketers and rugby-league players.
Methods: Stereoacuity (TNO), colour vision, and distance (with/without pinhole) and near visual acuity (VA) were measured in two cricket squads (elite/international-level, female, n=16; near-elite, male, n=23) and one professional rugby-league squad (male, n=20). Refractive error was determined, and details of any correction worn and visual history were recorded.
Results: Overall, 63% had their last eye-examination within 2 years. However, some had not had an eye examination for 5 years, or had never had one (near-elite-cricketers: 30%; rugby-league players: 15%; elite-cricketers: 6%). Comparing our results for all participants to published data for young, optimally-corrected, non-sporting adults, distance VA was ~1 line of letters worse than expected. Adopting α=0.01, the deficit in distance-VA deficit was significant, but only for elite-cricketers (p<0.001) (near-elite cricketers, p=0.02; rugby-league players, p=0.03). Near-VA did not differ between subgroups or relative to published norms for young adults (p>0.02 for all comparisons). On average, stereoacuity was better than in young adults, but only in elite-cricketers (p<0.001; p=0.03, near-elite-cricketers; p=0.47, rugby-league -players). On-field visual issues were present in 27% of participants, and mostly (in 75% of cases) comprised uncorrected ametropia. Some cricketers (near-elite: 17.4%; elite: 38%) wore refractive correction during play but no rugby-league player did. Some individuals with prescribed correction choose not to wear it when playing.
Conclusion: Aside from near stereoacuity in elite-cricketers, these basic visual abilities were not better than equivalent, published data for optimally-corrected adults. 20-25% exhibited sub-optimal vision, suggesting that the clearest possible vision might not be critical for participation at the highest levels in the sports of cricket or rugby-league. Although vision could be improved in a sizeable proportion of our sample, the impact of correcting these, mostly subtle, refractive anomalies on playing performance is unknown. / Funded by the UK’s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) grants BB/J018163/1, BB/J016365/1 and BB/J018872/1.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/13587 |
| Date | 10 November 2017 |
| Creators | Barrett, Brendan T., Flavell, Jonathan C., Bennett, S.J., Cruickshank, Alice G., Mankowska, Aleksandra, Harris, J.M., Buckley, John |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, Published version |
| Rights | © The Author(s). 2017 Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
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