Prevent injuries in young athletes   It happened in a instant, and Stephanie Clarke knew right away it was bad. Clarke and her London, Ont. teammates were kicking up their heels on the national stage -- the Canadian under-16 girls' soccer championship game last October in Edmonton against the Alberta champ from Calgary -- when her tournament came to an abrupt end.   "I was trying to get the ball from my opponent. I made a quick cut, my knee barely brushed hers. Really, there wasn't contact," Clarke, a 15-year-old midfielder, said through an incredulous tone. But, just like that, she went down, the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her right knee torn. "It was the worst feeling ever. I knew something bad had happened," she said. "It didn't pop but I knew I couldn't move it."   Clarke's blown ACL, the knee's main support ligament, is as bad as it gets when it comes to sports related injuries, but there are children and teenagers getting bumped and bruised and worse all across the country each year.   Statistics Canada currently reports more than 240,000 young people annually sustain injuries while participating in sports: Hockey produced the most injuries (11.7 per cent; 28,000 injuries), followed by baseball (10.1 per cent; 24,600), basketball (8.2 per cent; 19,900), soccer (7.4 per cent; 17,800), running (6 per cent; 14, 4000; recreational cycling (5.2 per cent; 12,600); volleyball (4.5 per   Lisa Fischer, a primary care physician at the world-renowned Fowler Kennedy Sport Medicine Clinic in London, Ont. said she and her fellow doctors see "sprains, strains, concussions, overuse injuries -- although they're not as common as in adults -- and growth plate problems," the latter of which occur because children are active as they grow. Growth plates are the tissues at the end of long bones.   Fischer estimates that about 40 per cent of the clinic's patients are under age 18. She says educating coaches and parents is a critical step in keeping kids safe when playing sports, and that helpful information is available through "travelling road shows" on sport medicine and sport safety and via the Internet.   "Coaches are working more closely with the sport medicine people, going to more information sessions, and it's filtering down," Fischer said. As in Clarke's case, there is often little that can be done. She's been told she was predisposed to tearing her ACL, an injury her mom Wilma and an aunt previously sustained.   Clarke's ACL story has a happy ending, although she's briefly on the sidelines this summer after "tweaking" the medial collateral ligament in her right knee. "I rehabbed quickly and really well," Clarke said of her return to action after six months, which is about three months ahead of the general healing time. If injuries are part of sport, there are basic issues that ensure safer sport for young people: equipment and facilities, coaching and parental attitudes. Luc Tremblay, a professor in the department of physical education at the University of Toronto who previously coached club gymnastics in Montreal, says tremendous strides have been made in equipment and in changing the attitudes of parents but wonders if sport does not have some inherent danger. "As sport progresses, it becomes more dangerous," Tremblay says. "Much has already been done in other areas. But in asking an athlete to play it safe are we asking for a less elite performance. "Sport grows by pushing the envelope." An issue in youth and kids' sport today is specialization, athlete's concentrating one sport meaning an increase in the intensity of the sport and the more continuous use of the same muscles and muscle groups, which leads to overuse injuries.   Fischer says she sees it at Fowler Kennedy in young people who combine school sport with an outside club or house league program.  "They might do two hours (of the sport) at school, then, say three more hours after that. It's hard (on them). In volleyball we see it with shoulders and rotator cuffs; in soccer, it's ankles and knees."   Certified athletic therapist Rob Walsh says overuse injuries can be the result of "kids being pushed too hard" and the "drive of the parents."  "Some kids are not being well coached," Walsh says. "They're being over-trained. Take hockey, why does it have to be a 300-day-a-year season?  "Or why does soccer have to go 50 weeks a year?  "Kids get beat up and burned out."   Fischer says she's very slow to criticize sport even with its injury potential because of a more odious downside related to children and a lack of activity. "The rising obesity rate. It's alarming, “Fischer says.”Any activity is good. Go for a walk, it doesn't have to be competitive. "Just go out and play."