There are seconds of high tension. Everything becomes quiet around the athletes. They focus their attention and their muscles tighten. They hold their breaths. Then the start signal sounds. No other portion of the race is as important in ski and snowboard cross as is the start. "Case studies indicate that 70 percent of the racers who are ahead at the start make it into the next round", explains Dr. Peter Spitzenpfeil, Director of the Operational Unit for Applied Sport Sciences.
BISp (Federal Institute of Sport Sciences) project in cooperation with the German Ski and Snowboard Association
However, what is needed for a good start? And what are the best tactics and techniques during the first meters of the course? In the course of a third-party funded project, Dr. Spitzenpfeil, along with Maren Goll and Matthias Olvermann, will attempt to investigate this question. Hereby, the Department of Applied Sport Sciences will cooperate with the German Ski and Snowboard Association as well as with the Olympic Training Center of Bavaria. The project will be supported from May 2015 until November 2016 with €99,800 from the Federal Institute of Sport Sciences (BISp).
Four starters, hindrances, jumps and duels
Snowboard and ski cross are so-called "new types of sport" and have been Olympic disciplines since 2006 (snowboard cross) and 2010 (ski cross). To date, no German athletes have won any Olympic medals here.
In both of these sports, four athletes compete with one another during each run. The first and second finishers advance to the next round. Starting at the same time, the competitors follow a parkour with jumps and steep curves - similar to a BMX course. The direct contact with opponents results in a spectacular race.
No scientific basis for starting techniques and tactics
"The trainers have approached us with the desire to carry out a scientific investigation for such strategies. The Italian Team, for example, has a special start technique in which the boards or skis in the start box are clamped in with a great deal of tension. Whether or not this is really better is ultimately unknown to all ", says Goll. "To date, there have been no truly convincing scientific investigations on the start in either of the two disciplines. The present recommendations are based more on the subjective evaluation made by the trainer", claims Olvermann.
The Investigation is based upon two basic principles. First of all, the results from all runs at the Olympic Games in Sochi as well as selected World Cups are analyzed. Hereby, the position of the first and second finisher in the first curve is compared in every run. "We thereby want to first establish and scientifically investigate, on the basis of a broad number of cases, how significant the position after the start actually is", explains Spitzenpfeil.
Kinematic and kinetic parameters for assessing the start
The second part then includes the actual examination of the start. "We will look at the various techniques and tactics, and classify these based on kinematic and kinetic parameters", says Spitzenpfeil. For this purpose, a start gate will be built in an indoor ski run. The leading German athletes are available for these tests. Planned are various measurements. For instance, the removal of the arm from the gate is measured with a dynamometer, and a Vicon system enables us to perform path-time analyses. The data obtained in this way is collected and evaluated using the already available anthropometric and performance-diagnostic data from the Olympic training center.
"Our goal is to develop a type of matrix in which the various competitor- and terrain-specific parameters can be compared with starting strategies and, based on this, find an optimum for each type of athlete", according to Olvermann.
The scientifically evaluated and also the newly developed techniques should already be employed in the World Cup during the 2016 season.
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Contact:
Dr. Peter Spitzenpfeil
Operational Unit for Applied Sport Sciences
Connollystr. 32
80809 Munich
Telephone: 089 289 24562
E-Mail: Peter.Spitzenpfeil(at)tum.de