One of the sporting stories of last weekend was the return to play, and superb winning goal against Man City, for Arsenal and Republic of Ireland star Katie McCabe.
There had been a serious concern when she had to be helped off the pitch in midweek against Bayern Munich, after which she was pictured in a medical boot and on crutches.
Thoughts of missing out on the World Cup in Australia were inevitable but the initial news post-scan was better and the anxiety began to recede.
Nobody expected her to start on Sunday though unless of course you might have had access to her recovery data on Whoop!
The tech firm, a member of Sport for Business since last year reached out with her permission to share the data above and to show just how the monitored self of 2023 can be an important guide to fitness, recovery and readiness to perform.
According to her WHOOP data, after the Munich game on the 29th, Katie’s recovery, expressed in a percentage format at 53% took a hit but over the next few days, with priority on rest, recovery and sleep and managed to get back into the green for three consecutive days, waking up with a 74% Recovery figure on Sunday’s game day.
Helping to make decisions based on a more objective measure than the player’s willingness to play will always lead to better long term decision making, and for that all of Katie McCabe, Arsenal and the Republic of Ireland squad can be grateful.
Whoop investor and ambassador Rory McIlroy will be wearing his band into action at The Masters in Augusta this week and we will look to follow up with a similar sports data-led story arising out of that, fingers crossed.
