Monday, September 1, 2008

Loughborough University, the pioneer of sport technology

Loughborough University is the UK's premier university for sports development and training. It has an unparalleled record of sporting excellence and some of the most celebrated names in sport have studied or trained at the Loughborough University. Today the University continues to nurture the sporting stars of the future - including athletes who will represent Great Britain in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

The sports technology research group has been active for over 20 years at the Loughborough University. It is regarded as one of the world's largest academic groups in sports technology and engineering, and works with many of the world's leading sporting goods brands including NIKE, ADIDAS as well as REEBOK.

Loughborough 's idea for sports technology is unique because it has a very strong tradition in sports and engineering. The university itself is medium-sized, and there are around 15,000 students, undergraduates and graduates on campus. It offers a wide range of course disciplines, but sports and engineering are definitely the university's top disciplines.

The project it works on is very diverse, ranging from athletic footwear to sports garments, from engineering to golf facilities. RespiVest, a garment for training breathing and is proven to enhance inspiratory muscle performance. Customised Footwear, a next generation apparel using cutting edge rapid manufacturing techniques to create footwear, is optimized for individual elite athlete and gives them a medal winning edge. EUROPASS, ADIDAS Football that is constructed out of 14 panels using revolutionary Thermal Bonding technology allows players exceptional ball control, just name a few.

There are around 50 staff within the University's Institute of Sports Technology, 6 to 7 of them are academica, 4 to 5 technicians, and the remain are the researchers, either postdoctoral researchers or Phd students.

One of the main areas for the research group is commercial and enterprises activity, developing new products for world's sports goods brands, which will also involve work with manufacturers. A lot of its work is in partnership with sporting goods brands, manufacturing overseas.

The University has a good understanding of relationships between major sporting goods brands and manufacturing factories. It works to provide innovation and research development. One of the objectives is to support high performance athletes who are preparing for the Olympics. A large number of athletes are training on campus, preparing for Beijing 2008, particularly in swimming, track and field athletics, martial art as well as judo.

The funding Loughborough University's research programme has received for the British athletes largely comes from UK Sport. There have been many Olympic competitors, world champions and world record holders from Loughborough University.

The Institue of Sport Technology is to assist these athletes in their training and preparation for the Olympics, which is very much dependent of the need of the athletes. Generally, it is related to instrumentation or monitoring, improvement of the instrument they use in training.

Loughborough University is the home to a number of sport governing bodies, like British Triathlon Association and British Volleyball Association are based here. University's campus also has a wide range of sport facilities, which are used by top athletes training in particular sports, not so much for competition, but it is really a high quality training area that helps elite sportsmen and sportswomen to realize their potential.

Source: Xinhua

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