Abstract

Short track speed skating is an Olympic sport that has been on olympic programme since 1992. During competitive season 64.2% of professional skaters sustain at least one injury and they are equally distributed through training and competition. As in every other sport, injuries are a part of training and competition process. Most common injuries are the injuries regarding lower extremities, such as: knee contusion, muscle starins, fractures and sprains. When disscusing about injuries in short track, one must take into account four different ascpects: racing style, sport equipment, rink size and skating postition. All of these aspects have a certain role in increasing the posibility for injury. Explosive knee valgus, internal rotation od the knee and high front tibial shear force, which are main movements in short track, are the movements that will most likely lead to an ACL injury. There are some basic ways to prevent an injury; basic as a good warm up prior to training. It is always better to prevent than to cure.