Annual Review - Olympic Oval - University of Calgary

National Team Skin Suit Design
Drs. Maw and Johnston, and University
of Manitoba research assistant Janelle
Vincent, worked with Descente, the
National Research Council, and
members of the National Short and
Long Track programs to produce the
final skin suit designs for the Canadian
Olympic Team in Torino. Combined
with work performed on the Canadian
National Team Cross Country Skiing
Suits for the Torino Olympics, 14 of 24
Canadian Olympic medal winners wore
suits with design input from the
Olympic Oval R&D Team. This design
work included wind tunnel testing both
at the University of Calgary and at the
NRC Low Speed Wind Tunnel in
Ottawa. Different fabrics were tested in
different configurations, to produce the
most aerodynamic suit possible. In the
case of short track, an additional
consideration was safety, as the suits
had to include cut and puncture
resistant areas that would meet the
latest ISU safety standards for 2005-
2006.
Speed Skating Crash Pad Research
Intensive work continued on crash
pad evaluations at the Olympic Oval.
This past year the focus was on short
track pad testing with Health Sciences
research assistant Kali Nunweiler. A
number of different pads were built
specifically for this testing. They were
evaluated with impacts at various
velocities. The work has resulted in
guidelines for pad selections in
Canadian short track facilities. As well,
a paper describing the work has been
accepted for presentation at the 2006
International Sports Engineering
Association (ISEA) conference in
Munich, July 2006.
Video Processing and Dartfish
The Olympic Oval continued to
develop its video processing capacity
with University of Calgary Kinesiology
students Lisa Wong and Kevin Huang,
supervised by Dr. Larry Katz, helping to
construct the video room in the South
Storage facility. This room allowed
coaches to easily examine video taken
from speed skating practices. An
archive is being created that will store
all videos for Olympic Oval athletes.
Crash/Fall/Injury Database
Working with Speed Skating Canada,
Dr. Maw and his students, Mercedes
Louro and Rory Sykes, constructed a
database cataloguing all of the falls and
crashes at most of the Canadian Short
Track Team Trials over the last few
years. With this information, the team
was able to produce credible statistics
relating falls to various causal factors.
A first study of its kind in sport and in
speed skating, the results will soon be
published in an academic journal.
Recommendations have also been
made to Speed Skating Canada on
safety enhancements for team trial rules
and procedures.
Short Track Start Statistics
Jessica Vredenburg, a University of
Calgary Kinesiology graduate student
and researcher in the area of sports
psychology, continued work
investigating the effects of start position
on finishing position in short track speed
skating, under the supervision of Drs.
Sean Maw and Peter Ehlers.
Crash/Fall/Injury Database
GPS Evaluation in
Competitive Cycling
With the cooperation of Alberta
Innovation and the Canadian Sports
Centre Calgary, Drs. Maw and
MacIntosh (Kinesiology) supervised
undergraduate student Travis Saunders
in a project looking at the value of GPS
systems in competitive cycling.
Working with Olympic Oval Cycling
Coaches Tanya Dubnicoff and Stephen
Burke, the project explored various
training regimes, race preview
scenarios, and race monitoring
situations. It was shown that GPS
systems do have a lot to offer cyclists
and as a legacy of the project, the
CSCC has inherited an FRWD GPS
transceiver for multisport use, including
cycling.
The Klap Trap
Drs. Maw and Johnston worked with
Engineering undergraduate Allen Yuen
to develop a unique system to
monitor the activity of the klap
mechanism in long track speed
skating, while the skater is skating. The
skater wears a small backpack holding
a laptop. Instrumentation on one skate
records the movements of the klap
mechanism. The output allows coaches
and researchers to see how the klap
behaviour changes on straights versus
corners, at various speeds, and under
different levels of fatigue. This will allow
for technical improvements both in
coaching and in klap mechanism
design. A paper presenting the work has
been accepted for the ISEA conference
in Munich, July 2006.
Ice Research
Olympic Oval Ice Specialist Mark
Messer and Dr. Maw worked with ice
researcher Dr. Edward Lozowski
worked with ice researcher Dr. Edward
Lozowski to model the behaviour of ice
as skate blades pass over and through
it. This work has the potential to lead to
new skate blade designs and ice
maintenance techniques that will
produce faster racing times. Research
is ongoing.
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