… Federer has now played 98 singles matches at Wimbledon, and has won 87, more than any other man in the Open era. Saturday’s victory was a throwback, with Zverev serving and volleying and inspiring some of the same from Federer.
All tennis is fast-twitch tennis these days, with the power of the players and the equipment. But Federer versus Zverev was only intermittently supersonic. There were baseline rallies on Federer’s service games, exchanges that seemed languid in comparison with the grip-it-and-rip-it approach now in vogue. Federer and Zverev traded sliced backhands, giving spectators ample time to appreciate the ball in flight.
… “I went there, and I was doing fitness with my fitness coach, and after like 10 minutes, I looked at him and said, ‘I don’t know what we’re doing in Paris. Seriously, my knee is swollen. I don’t feel ready to go. It’s maybe the toughest tournament out there. My back is funny. My knee is not well. What are we doing?’
“Instead of doing fitness or warm-ups or whatever we were trying to do, we were talking for an hour and a half until we got kicked out of the room we were in because somebody else had booked it.”
Federer’s body was making the decision for him. As much as he wanted to play the French Open and every Grand Slam as long as he was an active player, that simply wasn’t an option for him anymore. “As a team, we just decided that it’s best to skip it,” Federer said. “So, it wasn’t should I or shouldn’t I.
… The speakers also discussed many of the challenges they face; I’m sure many in sport have come across these themselves. They included scheduling, travel, player recruitment, playing style/tactical systems utilised, incorporating physical development alongside the technical programme and one we experience a lot in football/soccer… coaching changes! Whilst some of these are out of our hands, overcoming them may be underpinned by strong relationships.
While technology can provide valuable information, it can also pose major challenges as discussed at this event. It is clear that managing data to be able to answer the aforementioned questions, and not just collecting data for the sake of it, is a clear priority for Sports Scientists. From selecting which technology to invest in, to the entire process of collecting, storing and feeding back that data in a meaningful way. As Ruud van Elk said the Performance staff goals are getting simple, clear, fast and functional information to the coaches.
As Stephen Smith pointed out, more data leads to more decisions but it does not necessarily lead to better decisions. There were a range of companies sponsoring the event: Catapult, POP, Omegawave, Kitman Labs, Nordbord, Sparta Science and Bruks Bars, some of which focused their various presentations on how their products can help confront this challenge of data management. Many of these companies can add value to the applied environment, as long as you know what question(s) you are trying to answer with the investment.
This study examined the influence of body composition on temperature and blood flow responses to post-exercise cold water immersion (CWI), hot water immersion (HWI) and control (CON). Twenty-seven male participants were stratified into three groups: 1) low mass and low fat (LM-LF); 2) high mass and low fat (HM-LF); or 3) high mass and high fat (HM-HF). Experimental trials involved a standardised bout of cycling, maintained until core temperature reached 38.5°C. Participants subsequently completed one of three 15-min recovery interventions (CWI, HWI, or CON). Core, skin and muscle temperatures, and limb blood flow were recorded at baseline, post-exercise, and every 30 min following recovery for 240 min. During CON and HWI there were no differences in core or muscle temperature between body composition groups. The rate of fall in core temperature following CWI was greater in the LM-LF (0.03 ± 0.01°C/min) group compared to the HM-HF (0.01 ± 0.001°C/min) group (P = 0.002). Muscle temperature decreased to a greater extent during CWI in the LM-LF and HM-LF groups (8.6 ± 3.0°C) compared with HM-HF (5.1 ± 2.0°C, P < 0.05). Blood flow responses did not differ between groups. Differences in body composition alter the thermal response to post-exercise CWI, which may explain some of the variance in the responses to CWI recovery.
With news of German football club Hoffenheim introducing a Videowall to ‘revolutionise’ the club’s training methods, we take a look at other recent, innovative technological innovations that have taken place in the sports world so far in 2017.
The Bundesliga is no stranger to their clubs trying different technology to assist in training. Borussia Dortmund’s decision to install the Footbonaut training centre at their training ground being a key example. The Footbonaut is a square-shaped arena where balls are hit to players at speed. The players then have to control the ball in a small space and pass back out into a target area, indicated by a light. In addition, German giants Bayern Munich have announced details of a partnership between the club and Siemens, which involves Siemens Healthineers equipping the club’s training facilities and the Allianz Arena with ultrasound and X-ray systems that help players with medical checkups and support recovery from injuries.
However, Hoffenheim’s latest installment involves a 6×3 metre screen which is positioned on the halfway line of their main training pitch has been reported to possess the potential ‘revolutionise’ training methods. The system has four cameras and the feed from each camera is able to be shown on the screen at any time. The way in which the cameras are being controlled allows the coaching staff, like Head Coach Julian Nagelsmann, to explain situations in training in far more detail than previously.
Technology is a central theme that runs through all business and sporting operations at Bundesliga club TSG 1899 Hoffenheim. Thus, on closer inspection, what might first appear to be just another match day in Germany’s primary soccer league is actually the result of sophisticated interaction between innovative IT solutions.
For several years now, Apple has operated a hush-hush fitness lab in an undisclosed location at its campus in Cupertino, California, and this week the company offered up a few details about how it’s studying all kinds of activities—on dry land and in water—in order to build algorithms for tracking them on the Apple Watch.
Jay Blahnik, Apple’s director of fitness for health technologies, said Tuesday that Apple believes the gym-like lab—which was built before the Apple Watch was released in 2015 and uses employee volunteers as guinea pigs—has now collected more biometric data than anyone else. It has also become the largest purchaser of metabolic carts, which are used to keep tabs on oxygen consumption; it now has 50 of these machines, he said, and half of them are portable so they can be used for activities like swimming and cycling.
Consumer electronics company Jawbone had more than enough money to take on Fitbit and other health-tracking devices in the “wearables” market.
That may have ended up being its biggest problem.
Top-tier venture capital firms Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, Khosla Ventures and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and then a sovereign wealth fund, invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Jawbone, lifting its valuation to $3.2 billion in 2014.
Ultimately, all that money couldn’t save San Francisco-based Jawbone.
ISPO Shanghai, which concluded last week, gave around 14,000 trade visitors a glimpse into the latest fitness and outdoor trends and innovations. The number of exhibitors has grown to 572 this year, an increase of 22% from the previous event.
The collaboration with Tmall, China’s largest B2C online retailer, ensured an even higher reach also with end consumers, generating over two million likes and 40,000 comments, organisers report.
“At ISPO Shanghai, it was clearly visible how much enthusiasm there is for new sports products and trends in China. The market is enjoying continual growth and there is a real thirst for knowledge,” commented Klaus Dittrich, Chairman and CEO of Messe München.
It’s anniversary time for Title IX. The landmark legislation, best known for increasing sports opportunities for women, recently turned 45. Every female athlete — from the girls on local playgrounds to gold medalists on Olympic podiums — owes something to Title IX.
But as tempting as it is to reflect on how far women’s sports have come, that’s not a very Title IX thing to do. As a symbolic force, Title IX always has been about female athletes pushing boundaries, wanting more, and demanding better.
So it seems more fitting to look ahead and ask, “What’s next? Where do we go from here? What inequities in sports deserve greater attention?”
… Speaking to the media ahead of his side’s first pre-season clash against Sydney tomorrow morning, Wenger hinted at being flexible with his tactics during this summer’s preparations.
“I am open to getting some more signings, but it’s not easy to find the players who can strengthen our squad as we have top-quality players,” he said, as reported by the Daily Mirror.
“There are two ways to improve. First, we analyse what we did well and not so well and we improve on that. The second way is to bring some new players in.
… In 1978, Vegas bookmakers were using the most rudimentary of models. Think of how farther along we are when it comes to football analytics than we were four decades ago. All of that work, of course, has to have made us *better* at predicting football games, right?
But don’t these results suggest that we are not any better at predicting games? If Vegas was missing games by about 10 points forty years ago, why are they still missing games by about 10 points? One explanation is that the NFL is harder to predict now, which… well, I’m not so sure about that. After all, even if you think free agency and the salary cap bring about parity (which is a debatable position regardless), it’s not like the lines are more accurate later in the season once we know more information. Games are also slightly higher scoring, and you could make the argument that we should be measuring how far games are off by as a percentage of the projected over/under?
What if Visualizations Asked Users to Predict the Data First?
Imagine a data journalist writing a story about home prices in Denver. The journalist is planning to add a visualization to help users understand the trend of home price in 2014, 2015 and 2016.
The visualization could just show you the data, like we encounter all the time. But what if instead the interface prompts you to draw what you think the median home price in Denver looks like first?
… Trying to evaluate a player based on the box score alone can feel like choosing a home based only on its square footage. The box score is limited, but if we flashback more than a decade to when PER was introduced, we find a sports world where the box score was nearly all statisticians had to work with, thus the motivation to extract as much as possible out of it.
The analytics revolution has championed two principles: the importance of efficiency and context.
Transfer season is in full swing, and while there is nearly bottomless coverage of rumours, negotiations, and deals, there are still some questions about how transfers actually work from a business perspective.
In order to shine a bit of light on the business of transfers, The Independent has asked Jake Cohen, a sports lawyer who has worked on a number of high-profile transactions in football, to clear up some misconceptions and discuss some of the finer points of the business of a transfer.