Objective: To describe the visual functions of Olympic-level athletes and begin to describe any differences between sports.
Methods: A commercially available testing system was used to evaluate 157 Olympic-level athletes. These sports vision evaluations were therefore performed under standardized conditions. Visual functions, tested at a distance, consisted of monocular visual acuity, contour and random dot stereoacuity, and contrast sensitivity.
Results: Boxers and track-and-field athletes demonstrated mean logMAR visual acuities between -0.078 and -0.060. All others demonstrated results better than -0.121. There were statistically significant differences and suggestive trends in the visual acuity in the right and left eyes between the track-and-field and archery and track-and-field and softball, and between softball and boxing (range P=0.0005-0.0243). Mean distance contour stereoacuity of the archers was 62 arcsec, worse than the soccer, softball, and speed skaters. All athletes demonstrated similar contrast sensitivity results at low spatial frequencies, whereas at higher spatial frequencies, softball players performed better than did the speed skaters, track-and-field, and volleyball athletes.
Conclusions and application to clinical practice: There seems to be a unique set of visual skills that are common to athletes in certain sports. In addition, visual performance measures vary between sports at the Olympic level. The ability to identify the visual needs for an athlete who wishes to participate in a given sport, and to correct any deficits an athlete may have, could lead to more success, at the elite and amateur levels.