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The top 5 olympic sports that have been influenced by technology: No 5.
Technology played a huge role in this summer’s Olympics; video systems to analyse boxers, touch sensitive suits in fencing and the revolution in communication due to social media systems that enabled...
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Top 5 olympic sports that have been influenced by technology. No 4
Number 4 in our top 5 has been awarded to textile advances in swimming. This is a fairly controversial inclusion; it is often used as an example of technological doping. I.e. cheating through the use...
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Top 5 Olympic sports that have been influenced by technology: No 3
Composite materials in the pole-vault: In third spot, we have the pole vault. The men’s pole vault was one of the first athletic disciplines to feature in the Olympics. In 1896, the pole vault was won...
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Top 5 olympic sports that have been influenced by technology: NO 2
Number 2: Tennis – Hawkeye assistant official In second place is tennis – although not the technological influence that may first spring to mind. Normally when referring to technological advances in...
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Top 5 Olympic sports that have been influenced by technology: No 1
Number 1: Cycling – Computational modelling of bike design Our final post in this series looks at a technological influence that isn’t focussed so much on the big gains, but more on fine tuning the...
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Tennis and the slippy clay blues
In the epic 2011 US Open Final, Novak Djokovic and Rafael Nadal mesmerised tennis fans by sliding on hard court surfaces, a technique that had, for the most part, been reserved solely for clay courts....
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Ping pong is bouncing back
Major sports such as football, tennis and rugby get extensive media coverage. Less ubiquitous sports such as swimming and cycling usually have to wait until the Olympics or major event to get...
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Goal line technology: is GLT the new LHC?
I know something is up when I get consecutive phone calls from the press to comment on the same subject. Most recently this was about goal-line technology and I wondered what I could say that hadn’t...
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Cycling’s a drag, but it doesn’t have to be
After a regrettably lengthy hiatus from the blog, this article was inspired by the excellent aerodynamics segments of the ITV’s tour de France coverage (in collaboration with Southampton University)....
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Football and skill: why you’re not as individual as you think you are
As much as I hate football (for explanation – I’m a Blackburn Rovers fan; enough said) I’m enjoying my holiday read. It’s The Numbers Game by Chris Anderson and David Sally and is subtitled “Why...
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Snurfing! What will be the next big thing in snow sports?
Figure 1: Snowboarder in flight (Tannheim, Austria) In 1965 American Sherman Poppen fastened two skis together and called it “snurfing”. But why has nobody heard of snurfing? Probably because most...
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Why do the Dutch skate so fast? Speed skating: a tale of culture, courage and...
Olympic 5000m title defender of 2014: Sven Kramer (the Netherlands) The speed skating events in the Olympics this weekend kicked off with a fully orange podium in the men’s 5k event. The woman’s 3k...
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WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE WOODEN ICE HOCKEY STICK?
Technology has had a profound impact on the sporting world and it is the reason for the sudden disappearance of the wooden ice hockey stick. Over the last decade, there have been large advances in the...
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Rocker ski technology: how to conquer the powder
Water skis on snow? Really? Although the idea might sound crazy to you and me, it made perfect sense to the late Shane McConckey, back in 1998. A professional skier and BASE jumper, Shane is...
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The UCI hour rule change, a record resurgent?
After a quiet period of nearly a decade, the UCI’s ‘cycling hour record’ has been making news again over the past year. In February, the time trial powerhouse Fabian Cancellara announced that he would...
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CSER @ The Jump!
Working as a Sports Engineer means you get asked to work on some really exciting projects, designing a gravity racer or working closely with Olympic athletes. In January we got a phone call from...
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Football and rugby boot innovation: does performance drive injuries?
The new “Magistra Obra” boots from Nike have just hit the UK market for the modest price of £240. The focus of the football boots’ design is performance: enhanced grip and low weight. The stud shapes...
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Cycle Size – 3D Body Scanning & Cycling
In a few week’s time our TVs will be jammed with cyclists. You will see Chris Froome and Geraint Thomas wizzing up mountains at the Tour de France, Britain’s best Downhill Mountain bike riders at the...
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Graphing Athletics: The story of the marathon – update on the 2 hour barrier
The marathon event, is the longest running event held at the Olympic Games, where competitors race over a distance of 42.195 km (26.219 miles) on a set road course. The marathon distance became...
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Tour de France pimples, dimples, trips and chevrons: are vortex generators in...
Tour de France time-trial stages are often decisive in confirming a rider’s general classification ranking. Riders battle against the clock to win, or lose time against their competitors. The two...
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