Sport Absurdity
In 2002, an Australian won the first ever Winter Olympic gold for Australia. Who won it (name) and the sport it was in?
(BONUS 200 if you include HOW they won)
Short track speed skating — Steven Bradbury, in the 1000 m at Salt Lake City.
He was last with one corner to go when all four skaters ahead of him collided and slid out. He crossed the line alone. He had advanced through both the quarter-final and the semi-final the same way.
Name the four Sustainable Development Goals studied in HMS. (SDG code AND NAME)
SDG 3 – Good Health and Wellbeing
SDG 4 – Quality Education
SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities
SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities
What is My Health Record?
A secure national online summary of a person’s health information — medicines, allergies, test results, hospital discharge summaries — accessible by their treating health professionals.
What does TOTAPS stand for?
(BONUS 200 points if you give a specific example of the last phase of TOTAPS)
Talk, Observe, Touch, Active movement, Passive movement, Skill test.
What should an athlete eat and drink in the hour after a hard game, and why?
Carbohydrate — to refill the muscle glycogen used during the game.
Protein — to repair muscle damage and support adaptation.
Fluid and electrolytes — to replace sweat losses and restore hydration.
Why the first hour matters: muscle is most receptive to refuelling straight after exercise, so recovery is faster and the athlete is better prepared for the next session.
Practical example: chocolate milk, or a chicken wrap and a sports drink.
What was the score when Australia played American Samoa in a 2001 FIFA World Cup qualifier?
(BONUS 200 if you name the person who scored the most goals)
Australia 31 – American Samoa 0.
Still the largest winning margin in an international football match.
Archie Thompson scored 13 of them on his own, which remains the world record for one player in an international.
What do the terms “morbidity” and “mortality” measure?
Morbidity – how much illness or disease there is in a population.
Mortality – how many deaths there are.
Memory hook: morbid = sick, mortal = dead.
Give one health responsibility of the federal government and one of a state government.
Federal (any ONE): funds Medicare and the PBS; sets national health policy; funds aged care and the NDIS; regulates medicines through the TGA.
State or territory (any ONE): runs and staffs public hospitals; operates the ambulance service; delivers community and mental health services.
Name the four aerobic training methods listed in the syllabus.
Continuous, fartlek, aerobic interval, and circuit training.
Caffeine and creatine both improve performance, but in different ways. Explain the difference.
Caffeine — a stimulant. It blocks adenosine in the brain, reducing perceived effort and increasing alertness and concentration. Best for endurance events and sports needing sustained focus. Typical dose 3–6 mg/kg about an hour before.
Creatine — increases the muscle’s phosphocreatine stores, which regenerate ATP faster during short maximal efforts. Best for sprinting, jumping and repeated high-intensity work, and for building muscle across a training block.
In short: caffeine changes how hard it feels, creatine changes how much fuel is available for explosive work. Both are AIS Group A supplements and neither is banned.
A Japanese runner started the 1912 Olympic marathon and finished it in 1967. What happened?
A — He got lost on the course and spent decades trying to have his result reinstated. Officials finally let him run the last stretch in 1967 so the record could be closed.
B — He collapsed in the heat and went home without telling officials, so Sweden listed him as missing. Swedish television tracked him down in 1967 and invited him back to run the final stretch.
C — He was injured mid-race and vowed to return. He trained on and off for fifty years before completing the course at the age of 75.
D — He was disqualified for taking a lift and appealed for fifty years. The IOC overturned it in 1967 and let him complete the distance.
**B.** Shizo Kanakuri collapsed in extreme heat, was taken in by a local family for a drink, stayed, and quietly sailed home without telling officials. Sweden listed him as a missing person for over fifty years until a journalist tracked him down in Japan. In 1967 Swedish television invited him back to complete the course. His official time is 54 years, 8 months, 6 days, 5 hours, 32 minutes and 20.3 seconds — the slowest marathon ever recorded.
Name two risk factors and one protective factor for cardiovascular disease.
Risk factors (any TWO): smoking, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, physical inactivity, poor diet, overweight and obesity, diabetes, excessive alcohol, age, family history.
Protective factor (any ONE): regular physical activity, a diet low in saturated fat and salt, not smoking, maintaining a healthy weight, regular health checks.
What is the difference between spending on healthcare and spending on prevention — and which one gets far more of Australia’s health budget?
Healthcare spending treats people who are already sick or injured — hospitals, doctors, medicines, surgery.
Prevention spending stops people getting sick in the first place — vaccination, screening, health education, anti-smoking campaigns.
Healthcare gets far more. Prevention sits at only around 2% of total health expenditure in Australia.
Explain the principle of reversibility in 5 words or less.
(BONUS 200 for an accurate and specific example of this principle in action)
“Use it or lose it.” Fitness gains are lost when training stops or drops significantly, and they are usually lost faster than they were gained.
Example: a netballer who stops training over the off-season returns to pre-season with reduced aerobic capacity and strength. Or an athlete in a cast for six weeks loses muscle size in that limb.
Name one physiological recovery strategy and justify why an athlete would use it.
Any ONE, with justification:
• Cool-down — keeps blood flowing to clear metabolic by-products and returns heart rate and body temperature gradually to resting levels
• Hydrotherapy or cold water immersion — reduces swelling, inflammation and perceived muscle soreness
• Compression garments — assist venous return and reduce swelling
• Massage — increases blood flow to the muscle and reduces stiffness
• Active recovery — maintains circulation and range of motion without adding training load
The winner of the 1904 Tour de France was stripped of his title four months after crossing the line. What did he do?
HINT — it wasn’t drugs.
Maurice Garin took a train for part of the route.
He was not alone. The first four riders across the line were all disqualified, and twelve riders in total were thrown out. Some had been towed behind cars by holding a cork in their teeth attached to a wire. Others had supporters block the road to hold up rivals.
Give two ways big data is used to improve the health of Australians.
Any TWO:
• Tracking outbreaks and vaccination rates in real time
• Identifying and inviting at-risk groups into screening programs — BreastScreen, the National Bowel Cancer Screening Program
• Showing governments where to direct funding and health workers
• Predicting which patients are likely to be readmitted to hospital
• Linking datasets to reveal health inequities between population groups
• Speeding up medical research and clinical trials
Explain one benefit and one risk of using complementary healthcare alongside medical treatment.
Benefit (any ONE): gives the patient a sense of control over their own care; can relieve symptoms such as pain, nausea or stress; treats the person holistically; some approaches (massage, meditation, yoga) have genuine evidence behind them.
Risk (any ONE): herbal supplements can interact with prescribed medication; many products are unregulated with unverified claims; a patient may delay or abandon evidence-based treatment; significant out-of-pocket cost with no Medicare rebate.
Name the three phases of a yearly training program and state the level of intensity and level of volume for each phase.
Off-season — recovery and rest, then general conditioning to rebuild an aerobic and strength base. Low intensity, low sport-specificity.
Pre-season — building fitness and sport-specific conditioning, skill development, highest training volume. Workload peaks before competition begins.
In-season — maintaining fitness, refining skills, strategies and tactics, managing fatigue and injury. Volume drops; intensity and specificity stay high.
Give one health implication and one ethical problem with performance-enhancing drug use.
Health (any ONE): anabolic steroids cause heart and liver damage, mood disturbance and aggression, and in adolescents can prematurely stop bone growth; stimulants raise the risk of cardiac events and heat illness; blood doping thickens the blood and raises stroke risk; painkillers mask injury and let an athlete make it far worse.
Ethical (any ONE): it removes fair competition and devalues the result; it pressures clean athletes to dope to stay competitive; it sets a harmful example for junior athletes; genuine consent is questionable when coaches or national programs push athletes into it.
Between 1912 and 1948, the Olympics awarded medals in five events that involved no physical activity at all. What were they?
**P S A L M**
(The first letter of each activity.)
Painting, Sculpture, Architecture, Literature, Music.
Entries had to be inspired by sport. More than 150 medals were awarded across seven Games before the events were dropped, partly because the competitors were professionals and the Olympics at the time were strictly amateur.
Australia’s population is ageing. Describe one challenge and one opportunity this creates.
Challenge (any ONE): rising demand on hospitals, aged care and the health budget; more people living with chronic conditions and dementia; a smaller proportion of taxpayers funding a larger health system; shortages of aged-care and health workers.
Opportunity (any ONE): older Australians contribute through volunteering, unpaid childcare and working longer; growth in aged care, health and assistive technology industries; experience and mentoring passed on; a driver for stronger preventative health and healthy ageing programs.
To what extent has digital health successfully connected health information in Australia? Give one success and one limitation.
Success (any ONE): My Health Record gives clinicians nationwide access to medicines, allergies and discharge summaries; electronic prescriptions replaced the paper script; telehealth scaled nationally during COVID-19 and has stayed; the Australian Immunisation Register holds a complete national record.
Limitation (any ONE): not every provider uploads consistently, so records are incomplete and clinicians cannot fully rely on them; hospital and GP software systems still do not communicate well; the opt-out model means some people have no record at all; the digital divide leaves older, rural, low-income and CALD Australians behind.
Name two physiological adaptations to long-term aerobic training, and say what each one does for performance.
Explain two ways designing a session for a marathon runner differs from designing one for a netball team.
Any TWO:
• Individualisation — the runner’s load, pace and recovery are set precisely for one person; the netball session must work for twelve athletes of different fitness levels and positions at once
• Tactical content — netball requires team strategies, set plays and combination drills; the marathon session has no tactical component beyond pacing
• Safety and logistics — the team session must manage collisions, court space, equipment and group supervision; the runner’s risks are individual and mostly overuse-related
• Motivation — the runner relies on self-motivation and internal goals; the team session can use competition, small-sided games and group accountability