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). Cycling aerodynamics in the 1980’s A few years ago my colleague Dr Richard Lukes wrote a review paper titled “The understanding and development of cycling aerodynamics” […]
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 already been said. And then I realised what the story was: that goal-line technology is a non-story very much […]
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 significant coverage. Table tennis rarely sees much coverage outside of the Olympics, even during a major event. However, this month, table tennis is […]
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. In this year’s tournament Djokovic appeared to have mastered the technique as he slid effortlessly into the final, only to […]
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 small details to make a winning difference. As said many times during the Olympics, cycling is all about finding marginal […]
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 tennis, racket design is the first on the list. Improvements in materials allowed the rackets to become lighter, stiffer and provide a larger hitting […]
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 with a height of 3.20 m; in 2012 in London, the winning height was 5.97 m – an increase […]
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 of technology. However, looking back over the history of swimming, I’m almost 100% certain that none of the swimmers […]
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 us to feel like we are at every venue. We received a thought provoking question from our ‘Ask a sports engineer’ project: “Has any […]
Talking about the sport of javelin throwing brings back memories of school sports days and the ‘safety’ javelins we would throw, made from what I can only describe as the grey pipe insulation you would normally find under your kitchen sink! I was lucky if I was able to project the length of grey tubing […]
Engineering Sport 