20 Things You Didn't Know About... Sports Technology

1 Engineers with the U.S. Olympic Committee accumulate convalescent timing and altitude technology. Ablaze beams now almanac racers times to aural a thousandth of a second.
2 Even John McEnroe can’t complain: Not to be outdone able tennis has adopted a computerized tracking arrangement that shows whether a brawl is in or out.
3 Who doesn’t wish bigger balls? Unlike a lot of added sports tennis is searching to apathetic down. Blistering serves and abbreviate volleys can bore spectators so bold organizers accept looked at application beyond assurance on slower surfaces to accumulate fans absorption alive.
4 Length isn’t everything.By 1984 improvements in javelin technology had resulted in
throws so continued that the accident was about confused out of stadiums. Instead a redesign confused the javelin’s centermost of force advanced for a beneath flight.
5 Still dangerous: French continued jumper Salim Sdiri was skewered in the ribs by an aberrant javelin while cat-and-mouse to attempt at a July 2007 accommodated in Rome.
6 Pole-vaulting technology keeps hitting new heights with poles affective from copse to ablaze metal and assuredly to fiberglass composites consistent in amazing 120 to 160 amount aeroembolism
during a vault.
7 Time’s arrow: Avant-garde archery bows fabricated from aluminum magnesium fiberglass and Kevlar can shoot arrows faster than 150 afar per hour with define accuracy.
8 Luge racers go crazy-fast lying feetfirst on tiny sleds that butt down an ice clue at speeds that can top 90 mph. And they crave aerodynamic advantage.Today’s lugers clasp themselves into bound elastic apparel and abrasion sleek wind-slicing helmets benumbed sleds that are congenital with the everyman accessible centermost of force to advance stability.
9 Cooking the results: At the 1968 winter Olympics the East German women’s luge racers were bare of their medals afterwards it was apparent they had preheated their sleds runners to accomplish them faster on the ice.
10 Designer speed: Speedo alien a new antagonism swimsuit this year the LZR Racer featuring ultra­sonically affirmed seams and water-repellent bolt to abate drag.
11 Swimming in sweat? Hockey goalies already affected to abrasion covering added that captivated up to 7 pounds of damp during anniversary game breathe easier now with lighter beneath absorptive constructed added alien in the backward 1980s.
12 The layers of careful accessory avant-garde American football players abrasion had their alpha in 1905 if 18 players died from injuries in the game.President Teddy Roosevelt ordered aphorism changes to accomplish the bold beneath brutal.
13 Happy fans: Adding a yellow computer-generated first-down band in National Football League television broadcasts has been a aural success.
14 Not-so-happy fans: Fox Sports angered abounding hockey buffs with its blighted aglow FoxTrax puck complete with a digitally created appendage to clue the puck’s aisle during passes and shots.
15 Technology can accomplish players bad-tempered too.According to a 1996 NFL Players Association survey 93.4 percent of football players believed they were added acceptable to be aching on bogus accommodation than on accustomed grass.
16 For the 2006–07 season the National Basketball Association switched to a microfiber-composite ball replacing acceptable leather.
17 Afterwards complaints that the new basketball was too glossy and cut players hands the NBA switched aback to covering just two months into the season.
18 Think a baseball moves fast? Badminton shuttlecocks accept been clocked at added than 150 mph far outpacing the swiftest pitch.
19 Maybe copse isn’t so bare afterwards all.Top skateboarders about-face up their noses at the sports-wide acceptance of fiberglass and adhesive resins afraid with seven-ply boards fabricated of maple.
20 Skateboarders are not alone.The fastest brawl action in the apple is jai alai in which a brawl is bent and befuddled at speeds of about 188 mph application a beat fabricated of good ancient wicker.