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The common perception of engineering and sport is that of shiny new bikes, aerodynamic helmets and sleek bobsleds. I often get asked, “isn’t it just the best equipment that wins now, rather than the athlete?” The answer – as far as I’m concerned – is obviously “no” and I’ve spent my working life in the field of sports engineering. I’ll explain why.
Skeleton bobsleigh simulation using ANSYS (formerly Fluent) CFD, and Ensight software. Skeleton and slider model of Kristan Bromley created from 3D laser scanning and surfacing with Geomagic Studio.
Alpine skiing events are dominated by countries who have the luxury of snow capped mountains, for obvious reasons. Figure 1 shows that 85% of Alpine skiing medals at the Olympics have been won by only 7 countries. The mountainous countries appear to have a monopoly on the medals and the obvious question is; can countries without established ski resorts really compete on the world stage? I think the simple answer is no, when referring to traditional alpine ski racing. My colleague Leon Foster published a very interesting paper on the relationship between population size and athletic performance which showed that the larger the population participating in a sport, the higher the probability of finding an exceptional athlete. Mountainous countries with extensive high quality ski resorts inevitably have a larger population participating in alpine skiing from a very young age. Hence, the dominance of Austria and Switzerland in figure 1.
- Figure 1. Alpine skiing medals at the Olympics per country.
Figure 1. Laird Hamilton working on his brachistochrone problem.
I recently came across the term ‘brachistochrone‘ and wondered how I’d missed it, especially as Johann Bernoulli initially created it over 300 years ago in June, 1696. The brachistochrone is the solution to an intriguingly simple question:
“Given two points A and B in a vertical plane, assign a path AMB to the moving body M, along which the body will arrive to point B, falling by its own gravity and beginning from A, in the least time.“
Or, to paraphrase it: “what path should a frictionless object follow when travelling between 2 points under gravity alone to minimise its time of travel?”
It’s all downhill from here
After the worst winter for 47 years, the snow has finally gone. I miss it already and now I’m looking forward to virtual winter from the comfort of my armchair courtesy of the BBC and the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Britain is not best suited for winter sports since we only get decent conditions once in every blue moon. GB have only gained 15 medals in the history of the Winter Olympics but we do seem to be getting better with 9 of them in the last 4 decades compared to 6 in the first four. Our best ever performance was a gold, a silver and a bronze way back in 1936 in Garmisch-Partenkirchen.
Figure 1. Bobsleigh 1928 style.
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