2021 has been another successful year for Orreco and its Female Athlete Consultancy programme and associated platforms FitrWoman and FitrCoach.
At Orreco our values fall into four pillars consisting of research, education, participation and performance, and our work this year has contributed in these four areas.
Education and participation:
Throughout the year our female athlete team has been striving to empower through education around female physiology including the menstrual cycle. One example of this saw Orreco’s Female Athlete Lead Dr Georgie Bruinvels doing six weeks of education workshops with the Confederation of African Football (CAF), the governing body for football in Africa, and their 54 member associations.
In June 2021, we also launched a campaign in partnership with Adidas to advise and support the brand around the field of sports science and expertise in physiology and the female athlete with a focus on menstruation and menstruation through the lens of sport for girls, women, and professional athletes. This campaign focussed on supporting females across the lifespan from pre-puberty, puberty and pregnancy with Dr Georgie Bruinvels.
Performance:
In a busy twelve months, Orreco’s Female Athlete Consultancy programme signed to work with additional female teams including footballing sides from the Women’s Super League, Swiss League, La Liga, Mexican League, plus expanding into the sports of rugby and cycling with Drops Le Col and Harlequins Women.
2021 also saw a huge amount of Olympic success with our clients, which saw a total of 17 medals recorded overall through our work with USA Swimming, Beach Volleyball, Indoor Volleyball and Slalom Canoeing. Special mention must go to clients: Team USA Tokyo 2020 Olympic Beach Volleyball champions April Ross and Alix Klineman and ten-time Olympic swimming medallist Allison Schmitt. We look forward to continuing our work in the Olympic space as another cycle begins towards Paris 2024.
Current WSL champions and FA Cup holders Chelsea FC Women also resigned a multi-year agreement with Orreco as our work in football also saw us collaborate with the English FA Lionesses and Team GB’s football team.
Our partnership with world leading Sports Agency Wasserman and their Collective clients also continues, as does our work with USA Swimming with some exciting announcements to come in the new year.
In other exciting news, Orreco’s Female Athlete Programme also began working with PUMA and company ambassador, Olympique Lyonnais footballer and Icelandic captain Sara Bjork, where we will continue to work closely with her to assist on her return to professional football after the birth of her child, as we approach the Women's Euro 2022 tournament next year.
The last twelve months also saw Orreco’s client base quadruple in size with client sign-ons and increased downloads for the Fitr apps- FitrWoman and FitrCoach.
Research:
With regards to research into female athlete health, a number of Orreco employees have published their work in renowned sport science journals including the below:
Modelling menstrual cycle length in athletes using state-space models: de Paula Oliveira T, Bruinvels G, Pedlar CR, Moore B, Newell J. Sci Rep. 2021 Aug 20;11(1):16972. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-95960-1. PMID: 34417493; PMCID: PMC8379295.
COVID 19 Considerations for the female athlete: Bruinvels G, Lewis NA,Blagrove RC, Scott D, Simpson RJ, Baggish AL, Rogers JP, Ackerman KE,Pedlar CR. Front Sports Act Living. 2021 Feb 16;3:606799.doi: 10.3389/fspor.2021.606799. PMID: 33665612; PMCID: PMC7921484.
Hormonal Contraceptive Use in Football Codes in Australia: Clarke AC, Bruinvels G, JulianR, Inge P, Pedlar CR, Govus AD. Front Sports Act Living. 2021 Feb25;3:634866. doi: 10.3389/fspor.2021.634866. PMID: 33718869; PMCID:PMC7947621.
Participation in world-wide and world-renowned conferences also took place for Orreco’s staff throughout 2021 including Web Summit in Lisbon, the Manchester United Medical Conference and the FC Barcelona Innovation Hubs “Sports Tomorrow Congress” conference, all with a female focused lens.
Spreading the word:
Orreco held a total of six webinars throughout the year with topic discussions ranging from acclimatising to the Tokyo Olympics climate, iron and the female athlete, bone health and a celebration of women for International Women’s Day back in March.
During these webinars we spoke to world class athletes including four-time Team USA Olympic swimmer Allison Schmitt, 2016 Olympic triathlon champion Gwen Jorgensen, 2020 Olympic Beach Volleyball champions Alix Klineman and April Ross, and WNBA players and president of the WNBPA Nneka Ogwumike.
Catch up on all our webinars from 2021.
Orreco’s Optimized podcast continues to go from strength to strength with guest tackling topics from how to support females as a sport science practitioner with current Inter Miami CF Director of Performance Dawn Scott to chatting to 11-time WBNA All-Star, four-time Olympic gold medallist and Orreco client Sue Bird.
Catch up on all episodes of Orreco’s Optimized podcast.
Meanwhile, 2022 already looks to be an exciting year with a new road map underway for our FitrCoach and FitrWoman applications which will see an overhaul and updates to include more features for athletic development support, as well as great breadth and depth of data management and interpretation- stay tuned!
We would like to wish all our clients and app users a very restful and enjoyable festive period and all the best for the year ahead.
