For six weeks I (Julia Kathrin Baumgart) have been at Loughborough University as a visiting researcher joining Christof Leicht & co to observe and be part of how you do things here – hats off and respect: the vibe that you create in engaging students, having dedicated teachers and researchers is fantastic! Living on campus at the University Lodge including a (daily!) English breakfast and dinners in the dining hall as well as the comparably summer-ish temperatures made my stay here a very enjoyable experience.
After finishing the first PhD in the Paralympic area in Norway last year, my role now is to coordinate Paralympic research at the Centre for Elite Sports Research at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. The vision of the Centre is to conduct applied science of relevance to Norwegian elite sports. Of relevance to the Norwegians are snow sports. Children seem to be born with skis on their legs, and the Norwegians do roller-skiing in the summer instead of running and biking to optimally prepare themselves for the next winter cross-country skiing season. What all this whole-body exercise does is creating seemingly fit adults with comparably good cardio-vascular health. To facilitate good communication with the sports, we have moved from the university campus and are now located close to the athletes in the same building as the Top Sports Centre of Mid-Norway in Trondheim.
The leaves me to say: takk for nå (thank you for now)! Further to taking the experiences from my stay here at Loughborough back to Norway, I hope (and think) that we will be able to collaborate in the future.
Wrriten by Julia Baumgart