Stadium becomes UK first Olympic technology demonstrator

16th April 2014

Sheffield Hallam University and Sheffield City Council are teaming up to make the Sheffield Hallam University City Athletics Stadium (SHUCAS) the UK's first stadium fitted with technologies used to support Team GB at London 2012.

Advanced systems, including video-tracking and timing, will be available for use by schools, running clubs and anyone using the stadium at Woodbourn Road. Sheffield Hallam has allocated £125,000 from its Higher Education Innovation Funds to an 18-month project to exploit the systems developed by the University's Centre for Sports Engineering Research. The City Council has allocated a further £25,000 from its new Athletics Development Fund to pay for the high-tech equipment, which could be replicated at other sites across the city. The project will also fund a worker to promote use of the stadium by local people. Professor Steve Haake, director of the research centre, said: -We had a really successful Olympics, working with 15 sports and helping to win 24 medals. We created video capture systems, smartphone apps and simple-to-use software to improve performance. We want to install them in Sheffield for everyone to benefit an Olympic legacy if you like. The project also has partners in Adidas, the English Institute of Sport, Nova International (the organisers of the Great North Run and Great Yorkshire Run) and the National Centre for Sport and Exercise Medicine, making up a total project of £250,000. Dr Ollie Hart, chair of the Move More board and executive of the NCSEM, said: "This is an opportunity for Sheffield to lead the way in creating simple technologies to measure physical activity and use it to enhance our enjoyment and even our performance. We'll be looking to take what we learn at the City Athletics Stadium and use it to set it up around the city to help make us the most active city in the UK by 2020. Councillor Isobel Bowler, Cabinet Member for Culture, Sport and Leisure at Sheffield City Council, said: -It is great news that there is going to be £150k of funding for this new venture especially given that part of the funding will provide for promoting athletics to the communities around the stadium. I'm also pleased that the project has received the backing of the city's athletics clubs. "The partnership with Sheffield Hallam University and the city's athletics clubs, which led to Woodbourn Road stadium being improved and re-opened as the Sheffield Hallam University City Athletics Stadium, is an excellent example of different organisations working together for the benefit of the city. I look forward to seeing this ground-breaking technology being put to good use here and across Sheffield in the months to come. The project will start over the summer and finish in summer 2015, with design and installation taking place over the next few months. For press information: contact Joe Field in the Sheffield Hallam University press office on 0114 225 2074 or email pressoffice@shu.ac.uk

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