About bloody time: Chris Eubank calls for trial of concussion mouthguard in boxing Rick Broadbent October 24 2019, 12:01am, The Times please log in to view this image Eubank hailed the mouthguard as a “brilliant idea”MARC ASPLAND/THE TIMES Share Save The former world champion Chris Eubank is backing the introduction of a high-tech “concussion” mouthguard in an effort to make boxing safer. The Protecht system, which contains a microchip and feeds head-impact data to medical staff, has been trialed by Ospreys rugby club for the past year. Sensors detect rotational and linear acceleration and inform staff if a player has suffered serious head blows. please log in to view this image Professor Mike Loosemore, part of the executive team at Swansea-based developers Sport and Wellbeing Analytics, believes the mouthguard could help boxers by measuring the number of major blows received. Boxing has had a torrid year with a string of fatalities in the ring. Last week Patrick Day, an American fighter, became the latest to die after suffering a traumatic brain injury in a fight. Eubank well knows the dark side of his sport. In 1991 Michel Watson suffered a serious brain injury in his rematch with Eubank and successfully sued the British Boxing Board of Control for negligence. “This kind of gumshield would be a welcome innovation in the world of combat sports,” Eubank told The Times. “To be able to monitor concussive impact has all sorts of safety implications which we would fully endorse and could only be a positive.” Eubank, whose son Chris junior is the IBO super-middleweight champion, hailed it as a “brilliant idea” and said it may even lead to a change in how points are scored. He predicted it may soon be possible to monitor brain activity during fights because of the pace of technological advancements. Loosemore stressed its use in boxing is only an idea at present, but he is GB Boxing’s chief medical officer and Anthony Joshua’s doctor. He said he would be happy to talk to Joshua about using the Protecht system after his world heavyweight title rematch against Andy Ruiz Jr in December. “If he wants to, then we can talk about it then,” he said. “It’s really up to Rob McCracken [Joshua’s trainer]. “We need to do a lot more research before taking it any further, but I’m always looking to make boxing safer. That is my job. “The mouthguard is attached to the upper jaw so essentially it is attached to the base of the skull so it knows what movements the skull makes and the forces it undergoes when you get a hit to the head. It could help in sparring if a boxer has taken too many blows and so the trainer decides to stop or maybe change his defence.” Josh Warrington, the IBF world featherweight champion, said he had some reservations about its effectiveness. “We have had a lot of fatalities this year and we have to stop that happening so it could be a good thing for the sport,” he said. “But the data they find would be frightening for the public. This is a hard business. Most boxers will have a sparring session and then drive home with concussion; that’s part and parcel of it. Boxers know what they are signing up for. You can’t wrap us in cotton wool. “It depends on the data and its accuracy, but you can spar thousands of rounds and it only takes one punch to be knocked unconscious.”
When the Ospreys started testing these in training, the Company, that has developed the system, was shocked to see some very high readings right at the start of one morning’s training sessions. it turned out that before training, a number of the guys were having a game of Heading Tennis..... Football players need something like this monitoring/preventative system
Did you know, Chris Eubanks has just written a book about Ethics. If it sells well, he will consider writing a second book about Kent......
