Not only did the audience learn something new, we found out what the audience thought of science and sport.

Tyler Saunders shoots a perfect basket in the Faraday Lecture Theatre at the Royal Institution.

So what did the lucky 300 strong audience find out?  Well, for a start, that 25 years ago wheelchair basketball was played with National Health Service chairs – heavy mild-steel monsters which were unstable and probably dangerous.  Colin Price and Tyler Saunders demonstrated the modern day chairs which are made from lightweight aluminium with cambered wheels (see image below) to lower the centre of mass, improve maneuverability and give better hand access to the wheel rims.  Mike Caine, from Loughborough University showed some of the advanced designs emanating from his Sports Technology Institute.

An array of wheelchairs, scientists and athletes the RCUK event at the Royal Institution (L to R: David James (tiered seating; Mike Caine; David Willets; Steve Haake; Maria Kavvusanu; Tyler Saunders; Colin Price).

Maria Kavussanu, a sports psychologist from Birmingham University let us know that ‘sledging’ (the concept of using ‘whitty’ insults to put your opponent off) doesn’t really work since the person doing the sledging becomes distracted and declines in performance.

Audience put to the vote!

After a robust discussion on the rights and wrongs of technology, we turned the tables on the audience by using interactive voting pads. First of all, we found out who they were: two thirds male and 60% younger than 35 – perhaps what might be expected in a basketball audience.  But wait, the majority turned out to be science-lovers (85%) rather than basketball-lovers (27%).  It was no surprise, then, to find out that 9 out of 10 thought that science and technology had benefited sport.  When it came to the use of performance enhancement, around 60% thought that caffeine and climate chambers were Ok.  However, the use of blood doping or a relaxation of anti-doping policy was a definite no-no.

So what about equipment and physical technology?  Well, around half thought that it was Ok for a country to develop sports equipment solely for their own athletes and 70% thought that any technology should be allowed in training. Confusingly, however, 60% thought that athletes should be forced to use the same equipment during a competition.

Our final question found that a majority (62%) thought there was a clear difference between the use of technology and doping.

I’m not sure how reflective of society in general these answers were, but it’s only the first of 6 events and it’ll be interesting to see the difference across the country and with different sports.  Who will like technology more, triathletes or divers?  Will those who don’t like science be indifferent to the use of technology?  And where in the country will we see our highest number of sports lovers?

–

The next event is Cutting Edge 2012: Behind Triathlon in Leeds on the evening of 27th March 2012.  Tickets are free but must be booked in advance. Details of all the events can be found here.

Go ahead and give us your opinion.

Current estimates put the global phone tally at around 5 billion with the latest containing accelerometers, gyroscopes, GPS, electronic compasses and mega pixel cameras (some with video at 120 frames per second or high definition resolution).  Modern comsumer technologies sell in staggering volumes, the current ‘fastest selling electronic gadget‘ is Apple’s iPhone 4S, which gained the title after it sold over 1 million units per day in the first few days after launch.  Before the iPhone 4S, Microsoft’s Kinect held the top spot, selling 100,000 units per day for 60 days.  Before them both Nintendo’s Wii held the title with over 90 million unites sold to date.

Early adopter

The point is that, in science, we use a lot of the devices now common place in phones and consoles.  Accelerometers and gyroscopes have been used for many years to measure the acceleration, rotation and inertial forces of moving bodies, particularly in engineering (see ‘The History of the Accelerometer’ by Patrick Walter).  The manufacture of these sensors in huge quantities has brought down their cost significantly.  Sport is an early adopter and has always used the latest in technologies so expect to see your Christmas present used on an athlete near you very soon.

Microsoft’s Kinect is probably the game changer (sorry for the pun).  It uses an infra-red projector to project a pseudo random array of invisible-to-the-eye dots up to a distance of around 10 m.  An infra-red camera picks up the dots and complex algorithms use the distortion of the patterns to calculate depth.  This is combined with a standard colour camera to give a 3D view of the world.  The device detects the gestures of the user and uses them to control a game.

What is really exciting is that the Kinect measures the 3D world and can measure surfaces, track motion and even put a rudimentary skeleton on real-time analysis.  All for around $100.  Conventional gait labs run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars and while they are much more accurate, they still require you to attach a series of intrusive, reflective markers on the participant, something the Kinect can do without.

We’ve done some initial tests with the Kinect and it appears that it can measure the volume of a torso to around 2% accuracy and the position of the centre of mass to around 0.5%.  Joint angles are not quite as good at the moment, particularly for the lower body (the Kinect appears to be optimised for the upper body) but early use shows promise.  Apple appears to have taken out a patent on 3D cameras for its iPhone and no doubt other manufacturers will be thinking the same, with the possibility that we will soon be able to measure the 3D world around us.

A phone is not just for Christmas

There is a conference just after Christmas on wearable sensors – not just for sport but for health related uses too.  After all, performance improvement is relative: for an elite athlete it might be measured in hundredths of a second while for someone in rehabilitation it might be simply to walk again.

So when you open that present on Christmas day, marvel at the technology within and imagine the possibilities – the chances are there’ll be an app for that before too long.

In recent weeks two serious accidents in motor sport have resulted in the tragic death of two very talented individuals. These two events have put into perspective how important success is in sport. The two incidents bring competitor safety to the forefront and question whether safety is given paramount importance or whether it is being overlooked in the pursuit of ever increasing speed, glory and money.

Since the death of Dan Wheldon in the USA’s Indycar series, many drivers have gone on record saying that they did not believe that the track was safe enough to hold the event. In particular, they claim the circuit was too small for the number of cars. Despite these concerns the race went ahead. The implications for cancelling the race would have meant huge losses of revenue and publicity for the sport but surely this would have been a sensible decision considering what was at stake? Indycar has no run off areas around the track and has only recently seen the enforced SAFER soft wall system around the tracks. Cars can travel at 220 mph (98 m/s) in the corners meaning very limited time to react if an incident occurs on the track ahead. Assuming the limit of human reaction time is 0.11 s:

 http://msscentershop.info/content/39/11/785.extract,

the car will travel at least 11 m before the driver’s foot begins to press the brake pedal. The second death of Moto GP rider Marco Simoncelli occurred a week later when hit by fellow riders after dismounting his bike. Although both events were accidents, questions need to be asked whether they were preventable.

Motor sports always carry risks of serious injury and possibly death; vehicle speeds are increasing with improvements in technology, does a speed limit need to be imposed for the safety of drivers? In the Indy car race, Wheldon was not involved in the original collision but was caught up in the aftermath. His car lifted and ended up flying into a barrier. The aerodynamics of the car are excellent when grounded. However, if the front of the car lifts, air passing under the vehicle can result in it taking off from the track; is this considered fully by the designers of the vehicle? With regards to Simoncelli’s accident no-one can be blamed for running over him. However, falling off the bike is a common occurrence in motor bike racing and so should this be taken into account when allowing maximum speeds to increase? The Sepang track has passed all regulations for safety so its integrity is not in question. The area that needs addressing is the general speeds that the bikes can reach. The average speed at Sepang the previous year was 162 Kph and typical bike and rider masses are 135 kg and 65 kg, respectively. According to the equation below the kinetic energy of the bike will increase considerably with speed as shown in figure 2. The kinetic energy associated with high speeds can be catastrophic in the event of a crash.

Figure 2 Relationship between kinetic energy and speed for bike and rider with a combined mass of 200 kg

The Governing body for MotoGP the FIM is constantly trying to regulate engine sizes and maximum speeds but as recently as 2009 the record for the fastest recorded speed was 217 mph. The law in 2012 is changing again, allowing for 1000 cc engines, which could see this record broken again, reducing the time available to react and increasing impact velocity.

All of the above questions are speculative and the integrity of the teams is not being questioned but I believe motor sport does need to look at safety in more detail after these two serious incidents. After the MotoGP event the stewards decided to cancel the race, a decision that was criticised by many fans whom had paid their money to go and watch. The mentality of these fans shows disregard for the deceased and the fellow riders with whom Simoncelli was friends. The fans need to see faster and more exciting racing is ultimately leading to improvements in these sports but the safety has to be questioned.

A speed cap on the bikes / cars could be a way of overcoming the issue as it could be regulated to speeds where injuries may not be as severe. In motor sport accidents will always happen, these accidents do not have to be fatal.

Dominic Rogers is a final year student on the BSc (hons) Sports Technology course at Sheffield Hallam University. He completed a placement with Canterbury over the summer and plans to continue working on the research. design and development of sports equipment on completion of his degree.

Professor Haake:

Dr Parry:

Take Our Poll

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Take Our Poll

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Simon Choppin

I am a huge supporter of disability sport and have been privileged to attend the past two Paralympic Games. I also lead a major Cultural Olympiad project called Extraordinary Moves that aims to challenge perceptions of disability through the creation of a new body of provocative artworks. Furthermore, through academic research I have tried to understand why some performance enhancing technologies are permitted, whilst other are prohibited. Perhaps I am somewhat qualified to comment on this highly emotive issue.

I disagreed with Pistorius’ inclusion at Daegu, and do not welcome his likely appearance at the London 2012 Olympics. Surely this was a great news story for those of us with a passion for disability sport and technology? Surely he acts as a hugely positive beacon for inclusion and may even challenge the very meaning of the word ‘disabled’? Many people will understandably see the inclusion of Pistorius as wonderful manifestation of the very best aspects of sport; after all, he perfectly embodies the notions of achieving one’s personal best and never giving up. However, this issue is unquestionably more complex than a simple ‘feel good’ story.

The fundamental problem comes down to a question of enhancement. Do the specialist running prostheses enhance the performance of Pistorius, or do they merely enable him to overcome his disability? Athletic competitions are supposedly controlled by rules that define the sporting test. When an athlete enters the 400 metres, the sporting test is to run 400 metres as fast as they can. Athletes are not allowed to use a set of rollerblades as this would fundamentally change the nature of the sporting test. Now, whilst I think that a 400 metre sprint on roller blades might be an interesting and entirely valid sporting test, one would not expect rollerblades and running spikes to appear in the same contest. Of course, what I am getting at here is the question of whether Pistorius undertakes the same sporting test as other athletes when he competes in IAAF sanctioned events. To answer this question we have to consider the differences, if any, between the running gait of Pistorius and the running gait of others that are deemed to be ‘conventional’.

Understanding what these differences are has been the focus of two major studies. The first study was conducted at the University of Cologne by Peter Bruggeman in 2007, and made a very strong case that the gait of Pistorius was far from conventional. Bruggeman concluded that the prostheses created a significant performance advantage, and that Pistorius uses up to 25% less energy in the latter stages of a 400 metre sprint. On the basis of this evidence, the IAAF banned Pistorius from competition. Put simply, it was concluded that Pistorius would be undertaking a different sporting test to other competitors.

The IAAF ban was immediately challenged by Pistorius and the issue was taken to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne. A new team of respected researchers from America were recruited to further probe his running gait, and their new findings were successfully used by Pistorius’ lawers to overturn the IAAF ban. The new study was led by Peter Weyand from Rice University with Hugh Herr from MIT, and their headline conclusion was that Pistorius actually uses a comparable amount of energy to non-disabled runners. This new and entirely opposing conclusion was central to Pistorius’s winning appeal and, providing that qualifying times could be reached, opened the door to IAAF sanctioned competition.

Despite their formidable reputation, I have a number of problems with Weyand and Herr’s conclusion. Their argument was formed on a comparison of Pistorius’ ‘low speed’ running economy to that of endurance runners. Whilst it may not seem sensible to compare the running economy of a sprinter to a marathon runner, this approach does allow for a fair comparison of the aerobic energy system. Bruggeman‘s first study on Pistorius was criticised for not properly considering the uncertain effects of the anaerobic energy system on the sprinter, and Weyand and Herr promptly overcame this problem by only testing at low speeds where only the aerobic system would be in use.

The trouble with this approach is that Pistorius’ prosthesis are designed for sprinting and are therefore very unlikely to perform with good energy economy at low speeds. Furthermore, as a sprinter, Pistorius himself is far from optimised for low speeds and is surely less economical than elite endurance runners. Nonetheless, Weyand and Herr still found that Pistorius uses less energy than elite endurance runners; however, the difference was not statistically significant, hence their conclusion of ‘no advantage’.

Whilst the data may be correct, their conclusion was surely erroneous; for a sprinter to have a comparable running economy to an elite endurance athlete they must surely be assisted in some way? If I were writing the conclusion I would argue for a clear verdict of ‘advantage’.

The somewhat agreeable epilogue to this story is that along with some of his co-authors, Peter Weyand has done the scientific equivalent of a U-turn and now publicly states that through his prostheses, Pistorius has a clear and considerable advantage. So, what we actually have is two independent studies that both conclude that the gait of Pistorius is significantly different to a conventional gait, and that he experiences a considerable performance advantage as a result. In other words, he undertakes a different sporting test to non-disabled 400 metre runners; equally valid perhaps, but certainly different.

The trouble with all this scientific debate, IAAF rulings and lawyers at the Court of Arbitration is that it is a very messy process, and a process that evidently does not always lead to a logical resolution. In agreeing to revoke their ban, the IAAF has unwittingly opened a Pandora’s box of future problems and controversies. Do we have to go through this same process again each time the prosthetic is subtlety developed for an enhanced performance as it surely already is? What happens when a new contender comes along (as they surely will) with a different amputation level and different prosthesis requirements? What do we do when we are able to directly connect prostheses to the remaining skeletal system and thus overcome the training intensity problem of tissue damage?

I think that there has been a general absence of clear thought on this whole issue, and it is my suspicion that the incredible public support behind Pistorius has significantly influenced the decision makers. It is actually this public support that concerns me the most, because whilst public sentiment may be behind Pistorius to compete, I cannot imagine a scenario where that public support would remain if he were to actually win. Questions about fairness would be raised and a presumption of enhancement would prevail. Call me old-fashioned but I don’t think that it is compatible to want an athlete to compete, but only as long as they don’t win.

Dr David James

FINA changed the rules on swimsuits on 1st January 2010.  This effectively banned full body polyurethane swimsuits which had been blamed for the overwhelming number of world records in the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2009 Rome World Championships.  Nunzio Lanotte wrote a guest blog on this very subject and concluded that perhaps we shouldn’t worry since overall performances seemed to be continuing anyway.  One thing that is only just becoming evident, however, is that records made during the swimsuit era may be difficult to break.

The great thing about a pan-sport rule change relating to technology is that it can give a good idea of the effect that particular technology. Figure 1 shows times in the men’s 100 m freestyle since 1990 using the top times in each year, and the mean of the top 25 times in each year (each time used is for a different athlete so only the top time for any one athlete is used).   So what does it show?  The top time, as expected, is a little more erratic than the top 25 mean but a relatively clear trend is shown; on average times drop over time with a distinct drop in 2008 and 2009.  After the ban in 2010 times increased again and seemed to continue their downward trend in 2011.

Figure 1. Times in the men's 100 m freestyle. The average of the top 25 uses each athlete only once.

The swimsuit effect

The effect of the swimsuit is certainly visible in the data – the rule change in 2010 increased mean times in the men’s 100 m freestyle by around 0.75 s.  What is even more clear is that the top time in 2009 is over half a second faster than in 2011.  One question we might want to ask is, how long might it take for records set in 2009 to be broken.  Table 1 below shows the margins between 2009 and 2011 for all distances in the men’s and women’s freestyle and the approximate period of time it might take to beat the 2009 times.

Table 1.  Margins between 2009 and 2011 times for men’s and women’s freestyle, and approximate times to for the margin to be made up.

FINA’s choices

Whether FINA or the general public will be happy with this state of affairs is not clear but people in general like to see world records broken in their sport – just not too many all at once.  So, FINA may go for the status quo i.e. leave it and see how things go.  They could lift the ban and let all swimsuits be used again, but this  would be confusing and would certainly not do anything for their credentials for good governance.  A third way might be to set a ‘new rules world record’ from 1st January 2010 reflecting the fact that records pre- and post-2010 are judged differently.

Whatever happens, not many records will be broken in London 2012.

–

For an overview of FINA’s process see the excellent overview by Jan Anders Manson and team here.

“Power is the most desired physical quality for a number of sports because it entails both force (strength) and velocity (speed) aspects.”[1]

Dan Baker – President of the ASCA Brisbane Broncos Strength and Conditioning Coach

Why do we need to measure power in an athlete’s performance? Well, Dan Baker also says:

“Once adequate levels of strength have been attained, training priorities may focus more on increased power… “[2]

Over the past two decades, sports scientists have used a variety of methods and instruments to quantify power in an athlete. While these early methods were successful in a research setting where skilled users were available to operate and calibrate the equipment, they have not translated well to the coal face of training rooms; performance staff and trainers are just too busy to perform complicated setups and calibrations. Training rooms need simple performance tests that can be done in minutes by ‘non-scientific’ staff. When the performance testing is done, trainers and coaches need instant answers to inform their immediate training decisions.

GymAware Power Tool 5 combines a highly accurate digital position and time measurement, accelerometer (measuring angle of lift) and state of the art signal processing which automates analysis of the individual lifts – read more to find out why this is important.

The Power Tool connects via Bluetooth to any of the Apple iOS devices (iPad/iTouch/iPhone) with one of two apps: Gym Aware and Gym Aware Lite.

Designing for Sport

One of the big challenges in making the Power Tool work in sport was to maintain system accuracy when pursuing ease of use.

It had to be:

● exceptionally robust in the face of rough handling by athletes

● zero drift, as calibration is not an option

● accurate enough to provide useful data

● able to measure a broad range of movements

We use a tethered LPT and not a wireless accelerometer because better met our needs for accuracy and simplicity. With an inboard triaxial accelerometer included in every phone there is a lot of potential to build some pretty cool apps, but these can be a bit gimmicky, we have prioritised simplicity and accuracy (accelerometers are notoriously bad at measuring accurate displacement due to their integration drift – to measure power: power = force x displacement / time). A tethered LPT gives a very accurate measure of displacement. When you combine this with accurate time stamping of each position you can calculate velocity and acceleration. By adding a measure for the mass of the system you can then calculate force and power using kinematics.

Encoding technology

LPTs convert linear motion to rotary motion that can be measured in a number of ways. Older systems use a rotary potentiometer to produce an analog voltage while modern systems are usually based on some form of digital encoding technology. For the Power Tool, we use a reflective optical encoder built in to the LPT spool assembly, this gives us a non-contacting low power, zero drift method of detecting movement of the tether.

A major advantage of this system is that data is only recorded when a movement is detected (by the encoder count changing), this Variable Rate Sampling (VRS) is discussed in more detail here and here. The VRS data is very compact and requires no further filtering making it ideal to collect on mobile devices and send over the internet.

Angle of lift

Most of the exercises used for measuring an athlete’s performance have a vertical and a horizontal component. For our kinematic calculations we only want the vertical component, which we get by measuring the angle of lift. This Angle lift measurement is found by mechanically coupling a triaxial accelerometer to the tether to measure tilt with respect to gravity. Once we know the angle of the tether we can use a polar to rectangular conversion to calculate the vertical component of the lift.

By combining the advantages of the tethered LPT, digital optical encoding and VRS, with measurement of angle, we can produce a very simple, accurate power and velocity measuring device. With the simple user interface, bomb proof construction, and plenty of under the hood automation we have built a system that is ready for use in any professional sports performance program.

About Rob Shugg

Rob Shugg has over 20 years experience in a range of sports science technology research and development projects, including 12 years working with sports physiology at the Australian Institute Sport (AIS). He co-founded Kinetic Performance in 2000.

[1] Combining scientific research into practical methods to increase the effectiveness of maximal power training ASCA

[2] Baker, D. Comparison of maximum upper body strength and power between professional and college-aged rugby league football players. J. Strength Cond. Res. 15(1): 30-35. 2001.

Artist's impression of the Lusail Iconic Stadium

Introduction

Spherical sports balls, such as baseballs, golf balls, tennis balls, squash balls and footballs, are made from viscoelastic materials. The mechanical properties of these materials are dependent on both the rate  at which they are deformed (i.e. how fast they are struck) and the temperature at which they are deformed. In this instance we are interested in the effect of temperature. Sports engineers often determine the performance of sports balls by firing them against a rigid surface and measuring the response with a high-speed camera. Published studies have shown that for constant impact speed the rebound speed of tennis balls, squash balls and baseballs all increase with temperature.

Effect of temperature on soccer balls

We were interested in determining the effect of temperature on soccer ball dynamics. So, one of our Sports Engineering MSc students, Nicki Wiart, undertook her project on this very subject in collaboration with adidas. Nicki measured the effect of temperature on the ball’s materials in addition to its impact properties obtained from firing different temperature balls against a rigid surface. In summary, the stiffness of the material decreased as temperature increased, while the rebound speed of the ball increased. The results were applied to a typical penalty kick scenario by using a simple effective striking mass model combined with a trajectory model. The results showed that the time available to the goalkeeper was 7 per cent shorter at 40 °C in comparison to that at 0 °C (See figure below). Therefore, the time available for a goalkeeper to prevent a goal decreases as temperature increases. For those who would like more details the  journal paper which came out of Nicki’s MSc project can be found here.

Simulated penatly kick for ball temperatures of 0, 20 and 40 degrees. Image taken from Wiart et al. (2011).

Qatar 2022

Air conditioned stadiums are likely to be used at the 2022 World Cup. If this is the case, game temperatures will be virtually constant and the properties of the ball will not change. However, the balls may be used outside of the air-conditioned stadiums, in training for example, where it will be hotter (even in the evenings). Assuming the tournament ball is constructed from similar materials to the one we tested the players will probably detect slower ball speeds within match play. Therefore, attempts are likely to be made by ball manufacturers, such as adidas, to limit the influence of temperature. A possible solution would be to manufacture a ball from materials which have constant (or as close as feasibly possibly)  properties from around 0 to 50 °C.

I will begin with my own experiences – when I was a teenager I was an enthusiastic 100m and 200m runner. I remember turning up to local athletics competitions with my fingers crossed that there would be a tailwind rather than a headwind in the pursuit of a personal best . In my own experience the wind had an obvious effect, but can we quantify the effect of the wind in a sprint race? What does the effect mean in general?

The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) acknowledges the effect of a tailwind by setting strict criteria – a time run in a tailwind greater than 2 ms^-1 cannot count for record purposes. The effects of wind on the time for a 100 m sprint has been discussed in journal papers and at conferences and they generally agree that a tailwind of 2ms^-1 improves a time by about 0.1 s.  In the world of sprinting this is vast – the first 6 athletes across the line in the 2003 World Championship 100 final were covered by less than this time. However a 2ms^-1 tailwind is a light breeze, only just above walking pace. The effect of various wind speeds on a 100m time of 10.00 s is shown in table 1 (calculated using an online model).

Table 1. The effect of various wind speeds on a 100m time of 10.00 s.

Negative wind values are headwinds. Table 1 shows that the increase in time due to a headwind is more than the equivalent decrease in time due to a corresponding tailwind. This agrees with the previous blog article on distance running in the wind by Prof. Steve Haake.

Let’s consider the list of the top 23 (legal) 100m times shown on the left of Table 2. Usain Bolt sits at the top of the list, with much of the top 23 times set by the same familiar names. One thing to note is the fact that the majority of the times were run with a tailwind. In order to account for wind speed I used a model to correct all times as if they were run with a wind speed of 0 ms^-1. The result of applying this correction to this list is shown on the right of Table 2.

Table 2. The top 23 100 m times in history on the left and corrected for wind and altitude on the right. The green highlighted times have moved up the list and the red highlighted times have moved down.

This shows a great deal of movement in the top 23 100 m times, with the average movement throughout the list being above 5 places. Indeed the Pearson correlation coefficient of the rankings before and after correction is 0.29, indicating only a weak correlation. One notable movement up the list is Maurice Greene’s best time, jumping into the top 10 from equal 20th. Also the corrected performances indicate that Powell is the 2nd fastest athlete rather than Gay.

This shows it is not always reliable to comparer athletes on times alone. With the upcoming World Championships, comparing the contenders in the sprints using best times run this year may not be so useful in determining the favourite; the fastest time set may not be the best performance. There is one consistency between the lists in Table 2 – Usain bolt still sits comfortably on top. The world record is 9.58 seconds, set with a 0.9 ms^-1 tailwind, and this is still the best performance after the times are corrected. The model also suggests that if this performance was carried out with a ‘perfect’ 2 ms^-1 tailwind, the time could have been as fast as 9.53 s.

While on the topic of sprinting in the wind the 200 m cannot be ignored. Usain Bolt has the 1^st, 2^nd and 4^th fastest 200 m times in history, all of them run into a headwind. The world record of 19.19 s was run into a headwind of 0.3 ms^-1. If this performance was carried out with a ‘perfect’ 2 ms^-1 tailwind, the 200 m model suggests this time could have been as fast as 19.05, very close to the 19 second barrier. Even taking the effects of wind on sprinting performance, Usain Bolt has set some remarkable records that are clearly ahead of the pack.

We now have the requisite infrastructure to accept guest submissions, so if you would like to submit something please get in touch via our contact us page.

Shanghai 2011 Revisited

The Swimming World Championships held in Shanghai last July were the first major competition (meaning either Long Course World Championships or the Olympic Games) held after FINA (the International Swimming Federation) imposed a ban on full body, Polyurethane swimsuits. In February 2008 the introduction of a new generation of “supersuits” caused not only a revolution in the performance of swimmers, but a bundle of controversy, legal challenges, vitriolic accusations of techno-doping, and terrible headaches for athletes, coaches and companies alike. A detailed report of what someone has called “The year of swimming dangerously” can be found here.

FINA decided in Summer 2009 to forbid not only Polyurethane as a material, but all full body swimsuits (which had started to appear since around 2000).

To make things more complicated, another innovation had been adopted in the previous edition of the Championships (Rome 2009): an angled, adjustable starting block.

A group of French researchers (Berthelot et al: “Performance in swimming, three steps beyond physiology”, Materials today, volume 13, number 11, November 2010) has carried out an extensive analysis of the impact on performance of three waves of full body suits: in 2000 (the Lycra generation), in 2008 ( Lycra-Polyurethane) and in 2009 (100% Polyurethane).

Considering the best performance of the world’s top athletes for each year from 1963 to 2009 in a series of events, they have calculated a best fit curve and estrapolated it beyond that year. The picture below shows the trend line (red) and the performances (black squares) for 1500m freestyle men and 400m freestyle men.

The graph clearly shows a strong gain in performance from 2000 onwards, as the black squares fall well under the trend line. The red line itself shows an asymptotic trend, so there was a fair chance that the overall level of performance could go straight back to the beginning of this century; someone even feared that this drop of performance could create a psychological backlash on athletes.

I don’t have the time or the manpower to carry out a proper research, so I have considered only a few events, namely 100, 200, 400 and 1500 freestyle men in the last 4 world championships (2005, 2007, 2009, 2011).

The first thing to observe is World Records. Two of them have been beaten in Shanghai (200m medley men and 1500m freestyle men), which is a meagre result compared to Montreal 2005 (9 WR), Melbourne 2007 (14 WR) and most notably Rome (42 WR). It means, though, that the world goes on, and progress is still possible.

As for the 4 events I have considered, each of them was on average (i.e. considering the times of the 8 finalists) slower than in Rome, but faster than in Montreal.

The table below shows the percentage gain in performance (measured as the average time of the 8 finalists) in the last 3 editions of the World Championships, using Montreal 2005 as a baseline.

A few things are clear:

1) As expected, Rome, the only edition with supersuits, is clearly an outlier, showing in two cases a progress of over 2% in just two years.

2) In Rome, the bigger gains were made in the shortest races. The gain in the 1500m wrt Melbourne (0.19%) is in fact less than the Melbourne gain wrt to Montreal (0.33%). It appears that the supersuits become less effective, or even not effective at all, on long distances. This fact has been already observed, for instance in the aforementioned paper, and might have different explanations. My personal opinion is that the supersuits are so tight that the tumble turns can cause fatigue on the athlete, an effect that becomes more relevant on longer distances.

3) Far from bringing performance back to the Clinton years, Shanghai has marked a strong gain wrt Melbourne 2007. Once again, the gain has been bigger on short distances, even if the difference is not as strong as in 2009. At first glance, it doesn’t look like the new starting blocks have given much advantage, though. Split times at 50m don’t seem much faster in Shanghai than in Melbourne.

So it looks as if the end of the swimming world won’t take place anytime soon. On all distances we considered the Rome effect has been already reduced by over 50%, and is completely possible that already in London 2012 it will be cancelled, at least on long distances.

Even without supersuits athletes keep improving their records, and the race to the human limit is still far from over.

About the author:

Nunzio was about 18 when he understood at last that he wouldn’t be the next italian olympic gold medallist in Modern Pentathlon. Nevertheless, he wanted an excuse to keep on training every day without looking like an eternal teenager to his worried parents. So after a MSc in Mechanical Engineering, a few years spent in Venice designing submarine robots and an MBA in Oxford and Paris, he and a fellow pentathlete-engineer decided to create APLab (www.aplab.it), an engineering firm specialised in technology for sports. Today APLab machines and devices are used by many leading teams, athletes and universities in Italy and Europe, Nunzio is writing a book about sport tech to be published in 2012 and yes, he still keeps on running, swimming or fencing almost every day.