How technology and the odd beer help Canada's Olympic athletes gain an edge

Rick Westhead

TSN Senior Correspondent

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The first thing Canadian Olympic swimmer Michelle Williams sees when she dives into the pool for a training session is a line of bright, blinking lights.

The string of lights – imagine a lit-up airport landing strip – extends 25 metres down the swimming lane, fixed on the bottom of the pool with magnets.

“We race against the lights,” Williams told TSN in an interview in Rio. “Maybe it’s a mental thing. It absolutely helps.”

When she finally breaks through the surface and begins carving strokes, a small ear bud-sized gadget tucked inside her swimming cap called a tempo trainer sends out rhythmic pulses – like a metronome – to help pace her strokes.

Williams doesn’t have to get out of the pool to critique her form at the end of her workouts at the Toronto Pan Am Sports Centre. Wearing a Speedo racing suit that has compression panels built into the belly and back that help to eliminate lactic acid faster, Williams can review video shot from wireless cameras mounted above and below the water’s surface on a waterproof tablet.

“It’s become pretty high tech,” Williams said.

The difference between a gold medal and a fourth-place finish at the Olympics might be as little as a few thousandths of a second. These Games offer sports federations, national Olympic teams and innovative companies an opportunity to showcase how cutting-edge technology can help athletes improve their performance.

“Sports science is definitely something that can make a huge difference, that can give athletes an advantage,” said Ryan Atkison, a biomechanist with the Toronto-based Canadian Sport Institute Ontario, one of seven high-performance centres across Canada that work with Olympic athletes.

Atkison said researchers are working on tactics to improve performances in disciplines from swimming and cycling, where scientists are researching how closely together groups of cyclists should ride to reduce wind resistance, to track and field and wheelchair basketball, where scientists are scrutinizing how positional changes to the chair can reduce stress on an athlete’s shoulder and elbow.

“We have a lot of cool stuff going on,” Atkison said.

Data analysis and tech wizardry is on full display in many sports in Rio.

The BBC reports American track cyclists are using glasses that collect information from sensors, such as power, speed and pedal revolutions and transmit it wirelessly to the glasses. Athletes can see the data without having to turn look away from the race. The glasses can only be used during training, not during the races themselves.

Germany’s sailing team partnered with software company SAP to record 3,000 measurements of Rio’s Guanabara Bay, where sailing, marathon swimming and windsurfing competitions will be held, the BBC reported. The measurements are used to build a tide model for athletes to plot strategy.

And in track and field, Nike used 3D printing to make a different set of spike plates for each runner, according to the website Engadget. The printing helped to ensure each runner would have a plate that melded perfectly with their sole.

Nike is also touting a $1,200 (U.S.) pair of sunglasses that feature a single streamlined, fog-proof lens that wraps around the head, eliminating pressure on the bridge of the nose and behind the ears, Wired magazine reported. A silicone strap wraps around the head, ensuring the glasses won’t fall off.

Science is making a major difference in the pool where Olympic records are falling fast. While the oldest Olympic record in track and field dates back to 1968 – American Bob Beamon’s 8.9-metre effort in the long jump – the longest-standing records in the pool are just eight years old.

“The athletes are really alone in the water and they have to rely on their senses,” Atkison said. “Any extra sensory feedback we can give them in the water is going to help.”

He said the underwater lights offer a major step forward in technology for Canadian swimmers. When swimmers leap off the block, they’re travelling 4.5 metres per second through the air before slowing to three metres per second in the water.

“They just keep decelerating from the moment they break through the water and start strokes, so we want to maximize their efficiency under the water, help them know when to kick and when to start to surface,” he said.

The swimsuit itself offers another platform for scientific advances – and controversy.

During the 2009 world championships in Rome, 43 world records were set, a move that prompted governing body FINA to ban full-length bodysuits. Now, suits can’t extend below a swimmer’s knee.

Most Canadian swimmers in Rio will wear Speedo’s Fastskin LZR Racer X, which features a thinner fabric around the core of the women's suit for a better feel of the water, an "X'' strip across the backside — hence the suit's name — to give a bit more power and snap off the turns, and compression panels in the torso and thighs of the suit.

“It’s a great suit,” said Speedo Canada spokeswoman Emma Tripoli. “It allows freedom of movement through the water and still has the compression panels to help prevent lactic acid buildup.”

Beyond working in the lab and collecting feedback from Canadian swimmers who attend school in the U.S., Atkison said international diplomacy can also help him and his colleagues improve performances.

“Every couple of years we do a bit of international scouting,” he said. “Countries aren’t too willing to share what they’re working on now. They’re willing to share what they did four years ago.”

Atkison said he has his eye on researchers at the University of Sheffield in England, where naval research is being applied to the pool to produce three-dimensional computer simulations of swimmers.

“They can adjust small parameters, like adjusting how far a swimmer’s head comes out of the water, and see what impact that has on drag,” Atkison said.

And when he struggles to coax friendly rivals to share information in the lab, he tries another tactic – moving to the pub.

“Us Canadians are very friendly,” Atkison said. “We try to cozy up to other countries. Not just because we want to gain trade secrets. But it’s good to be team players and nice. If you get to know the right people, they may be willing to share the right information over a beer or two.”