Views | Olympics 2012: Sport, science, tech or both?

When a hundredth of a hundredth of a second can make the difference between winning and losing a race, all things being equal, it’s indeed the melding of science and technology that lends a distinct advantage.

Technology is not new to the Olympics. Chris Boardman won the gold at the Barcelone Olympics with an ultra-lightweight full carbon-fibre ‘superbike’ designed by Lotus. During the Beijing Olympics 2008, 44 out of 48 world records were smashed by athletes (including seven Olympic gold medal winner Michael Phelps at the Beijing games) wearing LZR Racer, a swimwear launched by UK-based Speedo. Assisted in its creation by NASA scientists, the swimwear was ultra-sonically welded, hence had no seams which reduced passive drag and increased speed.

The Fédération Internationale de Natation (FINA) was forced to reverse the decision amid accusations of ‘technological doping’ (Phelps came fourth in the individual medley this time around, though it may have to do less with the swimwear).

A reduction in drag helped athletes on the track too. The Nike Swift Suit is said to translate into a benefit of about .02 of a second in the 100 metres, though it did not help Asafa Powell in 2008. Similarly, the Australian cycling team used bicycles that were tested in wind tunnels (similar to those used for designing aircraft), to help develop optimal aerodynamic carbon frame shapes and reduce drag.

Garments got thinner too. Nike’s Aerographics, for instance, was an engineered mesh that can remove up to half the yarn in a garment. The new technique cuts weight by reducing the amount of material, while adding comfort and passive cooling to the garment itself. And Nike’s Flywire technology allowed it to make its lightest and strongest footwear ever. Track spikes with Flywire are now under 100 grams.

Nike also designed boots for equestrian sports that do away with the wearer having to struggle to jam their feet down long, stiff leather riding boots by using an asymmetrical zipper to make entry easier. And for its TKV taekwondo boot, Nike tested 20 different kinds of synthetic leathers to find out the loudest since three of four judges must recognise a strike for a competitor to be awarded a point during a match.

German sports goods giant Adidas, too, designed a racing shoe called Lone Star for the US 400-metre participant Jeremy Wariner. The shoe’s carbon nanotube sole was 20 times stronger than steel and its spike pattern makes the wearer always lean towards the left. The reason-—on a track oval, there are no right turns and therefore the shoes provide leftward propulsion.

Beijing Olympics also marked the debut of online and on-demand video — roughly 200 hours of coverage per day for the duration of the games.

The technology only improves by leaps and bound every four years. In the 2012 Olympic, technology usually associated with Formula One will be making cyclists faster, composite materials will help pole-vaulters leap higher and 3D mapping will make swimmers’ suits more hydrodynamic, according to the UK-based Institute of Mechanical Engineers (IME). The UK is at the forefront of this technological revolution. World-class sports engineering research is pouring out of British universities, such as Sheffield Hallam, Loughborough and Southampton.

Modern sports engineering can be split into embedded and enabling technology with embedded technology covering behind-the-scenes systems that allow coaches and training programmes to analyse movement and fine-tune performance and enabling technology covering the equipment that athletes use to compete.

For the 2012 Olympics, UK Sport’s Innovation programme enlisted British engineering firms to help UK athletes deliver medal-winning performances. As part of this programme, P2i (leader in liquid repellent nanocoating technology headquartered in Abingdon, Oxfordshire) helped Olympic sailors repel water using nanotechnology, McLaren enabled coaches to track wheelchair basketball players using radio signals and BAE Systems timed cyclists to within a millionth of a second using laser technology originally developed for the battlefield.

BAE has a five-year partnership with UK Sport, launched in January 2008, to provide expertise in structural and mechanical engineering, aerodynamics, hydrodynamics, mathematical modelling and simulation and materials science to some of Britain’s elite athletes.

The Smart Floor Field Lab. originally developed to track the biomechanics of gymnasts in training, is an interactive floor connected to a large visual display. Engineers at Sheffield Hallam University are now using the technology to help improve mobility, fitness and learning among schoolchildren. Movement sensors track the user’s motion, which then interacts with several ‘game’ options--Dynamic Balance, Smart Dance and Pong.

British universities work with global sports brands including Adidas, Prince, Nike and Speedo on advanced research programmes. For instance, US sprinters Allyson Felix and Walter Dix will be wearing Nike’s new Pro TurboSpeed suit that Nike claims, can shave 0.023 seconds. Borrowing technology used in F1 racing, teams such as the Paralympic wheelchair basketball players are using McLaren Applied Technologies tracking systems, with which radio signals and sensors can track their movement on court several times per second and to within 15 centimetre of their actual locations.

Advances in technology will also alter the way we will experience OlympicsAtos--an international information technology (IT) services provider and worldwide IT Partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Games--has developed a “remote commentator information system”, specifically for London 2012, which allows scores and results to reach sports commentators and news channels across the world simultaneously and in a fraction of a second. Robotic cameras are being used for the first time. Wireless transmitters will trigger the cameras to move and take shots, and the zoom is controlled with a joystick while the images will go straight to a remote editing system before being sent out to worldwide newsrooms.

New starting blocks for track and field athletes detect pressure from the heels instead of movement to detect false starts. And Omega’s Quantum Timer (and a similar aquatic version) will be linked to the starter pistol. It is accurate to one 10-millionth of a second, recording race times while simultaneously communicating each athlete’s times to scoreboards and screens.

NBC will telecast a record 5,535 hours of Olympics coverage over the next two weeks. As many as 1,000 athletes and trialists will be able to use the Samsung Galaxy S III with Visa payWave app on their smartphones to make contactless payments at select locations. Millions of Visa payWave-enabled credit card owners can do the same for London taxis and many Olympic venues.

Facebook, the world’s largest social network with over 900 million users, has launched a unique Olympic portal as well as hosting the standard London Olympics Facebook site. The Olympic hub gives users an unlimited ability to access athletes, teams and venues at a level that wasn’t capable four years ago. Twitter, the world’s favorite micro-blogging site with over 300 million users, has the official London Olympics Twitter site that provides personalized access to global athletes.

Youtube also has an official London 2012 channel so that viewers can go behind the scenes, watch landmark moments and relive history from prior Olympic Games. And as an official sponsor of the Olympics for 20 years, Panasonic is enabling coverage and broadcast for the first-ever 3D Olympics.

According to research firm Gartner, Olympics 2012 involved over 200,000 hours of integration testing since 1 billion visitors are expected to the game-time results website (there were 4 billion viewers for Olympics 2008), 4,500 kilometers of telecommunications cabling into and between venues and facilities, 10,000 TVs and a dedicated cable TV network, planning and coordination of more than 10,000 dedicated radio frequency channels, and 380 organizing committees (techology) besides 2,500 partner/supplier staff and 2,500 volunteers.

This is not to forget the Timing and Scoring systems, On-Venue Results (OVR) which involves thousands of personal computers or PCs, laptops, servers and printers in each venue, software that is specific to the sport, Games NetworkInfo Diffusion Systems that receive the data from on-venue results, and Core Games Systems--a range of critical game-time operational applications that enable access control for specific areas of the venue. Of course, there is also Internet Access (Wired and wireless), fixed-line telephones,ticketing systems, audio-Visual and public announcement systems, and private mobile radio service.

So what does the future hold?Outlining how technology will radically change the sporting experience of athletes, viewers at home, fans in the stadium and events organisers by 2020, Atos said viewers at home could get the full story on the screen in front of them. “Watching the 100 metres final, you will see a speedometer showing how fast the athletes are running,” said a 24 July release.

Fans, predicts Atos, will have the power to step virtually onto the pitch, as live footage and gaming merge into one while fans in the stadium will be more involved in the action-–whoever is running the event will be able to feed the live audience information that they may not want to put over a public network. Fans will also be able to use their smartphones to order and pay for popcorn or event merchandise and also be able to share their experience in real-time with all their friends and family--the cloud (loosely put, a metahphor for the Internet) will allow the almost instant uploading and downloading of data.

Athletes, on their part, will be able to train smarter-–gather increased performance data to spot patterns and identify signs of improvement, weaknesses or even potential injury. They will be able to change tactics in-flight and take the winning position.

As smart clothing (with chips, etc. embedded in the clothing) becomes ubiquitous, athletes will be able to make use of real-time information available to them and their coach. The will also be able to get spotted by talent scouts or secure more lucrative sponsorship deals. An analysis of what their fan base is saying in social media will help to identify up and coming stars.

And then comes another startling prediction. Atos forecasts: “Beyond 2020, we see the potential for event organisers to stage events where athletes compete in the same race yet are located in different countries. Each athlete could run in his or her own city, and yet they could appear together as holograms in the same race.”

But there are some pitfalls too

Engineering, according to IME, has been used throughout history to develop and modernise almost every sport, bringing benefits that many sportsmen and women might take for granted. Yet the rapid advance of technology means that engineers also have a valuable role to play in ensuring that these advances do not lead to accusations that ‘technology doping’ is threatening the spirit or challenge of any individual sport.

The Financial Times has revealed that several health technology companies have supplied athletes with the latest devices in order to help them to optimise their performance at the Olympics. In exchange these companies will use the data that they receive from the athletes to enhance their products.

What more is that even the differently-abled make score an advantage over able-bodied atheletes, thanks to science and technology.

Biomedical engineering has already caused sporting controversy with the case of Oscar Pistorius, the South African Paralympian who applied to compete in the 2008 Olympics. His successful application caused some to claim that Pistorius’ Flex-Foot Cheetah leg prostheses gave him an advantage over able-bodied athletes-–allegations that were swiftly rejected by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF). While current biomedical devices are focused on restoring function, rapid development in this field means we are only years away from devices and prosthetics that can give athletes a competitive advantage over those who do not use them, according to IME.

Meanwhile, the IME notes that sport is also an excellent medium to attract the attention of young people to science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) subjects.

Let’s hope that for the sake of sports, it’s the latter trend that takes precedence.