Since 2000, and especially in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics, the Sports Engineering and Research Centre at Sheffield Hallam University has worked with UK Sport to provide technology solutions to help Team GB win more medals. We have two criteria: offer value for money and influence gold medals.
One of the particular success stories for London 2012 was boxing. iBoxer was created to suck in data from a number of different sources: tournament statistics, statistics from the International Amateur Boxing Association, boxers’ weights, heights and judges’ scores, cameras from the gym, YouTube and DVDs. This is all stored in one place, giving coaches and boxers easy access to watch fights and to help piece together a picture of the opponent and develop a plan. Prior to installation, the boxers had a 50/50 chance of winning a bout; afterwards, it was 75/25. We know it’s been successful because our funding has been increased for Rio.
However, it’s not just elite athletes who are set to benefit from our expertise. Sheffield aims to be the most active city in the UK by 2020, and we’re supporting this with an app-based approach called Move More, built by colleagues at the University of Sheffield. A framework will be developed around Move More, looking at how people can be encouraged to be more active in every aspect of their lives – not just their leisure time, but at home, on their commute and at work/school. One of the things this will involve will be competitions in schools and companies around the number of steps walked.
The NHS and the government are desperate for evidence that shows exercise can impact health. We hope to provide this at the Advanced Wellness Research Centre. Set to open in early 2018, on the site of the former Don Valley Stadium, this will be a hothouse involving everyone who promotes wellness: psychologists, healthcare economists and engineers. We’ll be looking to come up with technological innovations to get people moving using gadgets, equipment and installations.
Diabetes, and its co-morbidities, costs Sheffield millions of pounds every year. If we could have just 1 per cent of that money to invest in getting people more physically active, that would be a lot of funding.
We need leisure providers to get involved with getting everyone more active, but they will have to think outside of the box, finding ways of engaging with new customers rather than just fighting for the same ones.
