UM students win first prizes at international sports science conference

(From left) Yu Qian, Li Jie, Kong Zhaowei, Hu Mingzhu, Li Siqi

Students of the Faculty of Education (FED) of the University of Macau (UM) won five awards at the 20th Annual Meeting of the Society of Chinese Scholars on Exercise Physiology and Fitness, the UM announced.

Among the awards are two first prizes and a second prize for oral presentation, as well as a first prize and a second prize for poster presentations, making UM’s delegation to the conference the most awarded of this year.

According to the same UM statement, the reports submitted by the UM students provide scientific support for different types of sports research and received positive feedback from the judges.

The conference featured a total of 81 oral presentations and 117 poster presentations from postgraduate students and scholars from the U.S., South Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.

The conference awarded a total of 10 first prizes and 10 second prizes for oral presentations, and seven first prizes and nine second prizes for poster presentations.

The FED delegation had six participants, of whom five collected awards. This has been UM’s best-performing delegation to this annual conference.

Hu Mingzhu, who holds a Ph.D. in education from UM, won two first prizes for the oral presentation of her project ‘Physiological and Psychological Effects of a Ketogenic Diet Combined with Exercise under Hypoxia in Overweight Individuals.’ Li Siqi, a master’s graduate in physical education and sport studies, was awarded a second prize for the oral presentation of her project ‘Exercise Enjoyment in High-intensity Interval Training and Moderate-intensity Continuous Training with a Low-carb Diet in Sedentary Young Women.’ Li Jie and Yu Qian, both Ph.D. students in education, received a first prize and a second prize respectively for the poster presentations titled ‘Research on the Relationship between Core Stability and Vertical Jump,’ and ‘Dose Response and Time Effect of Exogenous Ketone Supplementation on Blood Parameters.’

The research results of these four projects provide scientific support for sports training, nutritional supplementation, and public health, as well as new perspectives for interdisciplinary research that involves sports science, biomechanics, nutrition, and psychology.

All students involved were supervised by associate professor Kong Zhaowei who, according to UM, ranks in the world’s top 30 experts in the field of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) and is a renowned scholar in research on simulated hypoxic training.

The Society of Chinese Scholars on Exercise Physiology and Fitness is the only international platform for regular academic exchange in the field of sports science in the Greater China region.