





Andrew Cave and Alex Miller report on the innovations that are unlocking new opportunities in athletics for fans, participants and commercial partners

The 15th IAAF World Championships get under way in Beijing on Saturday 22 August, and in two years’ time it will be the turn of London to stage the biggest event in athletics outside the Olympic Games.

Technology is playing an increasing role in helping professional athletes, amateur runners and armchair fans to engage with the sport.

Brands from Nike to BAE Systems are introducing performance-enhancing innovations, while start-ups such as Fitbit and FanDuel are demonstrating the potential technology has to tap into the health and wealth of fans.

Defence group BAE Systems, for example, is UK Sport’s official research and innovation partner on the road to next year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The group signed an £800,000 agreement in August 2013 to give 20 Olympic and Paralympic sports, including athletics, access to cutting-edge technology to apply scientific innovation to training, recovery, injury prevention and participation in competitions.

Its innovations include a revolutionary advanced composite racing wheel that claims to be stronger, faster and lighter than previous designs, improving the acceleration of Britain’s wheelchair racers by up to 20 per cent by reducing friction with the track.

BAE says that, as well as seeking to make a difference to Britain’s sporting success, its high-profile partnership is aimed both at demonstrating how engineering can be applied in many different areas and encouraging more young people to consider science, technology, engineering and maths careers.

Other technological partnerships appeal to the non-professional athletics market. British Athletics has a seven-year kit deal, believed to be worth more than £15m, with Nike, whose technological innovations include its Nike+ package of specially designed running shoes and sports kit featuring a sensor and receiver that connect the shoes with an Apple iPod nano.

As people run, their iPod informs them of the distance covered, pace and calories burnt via voice feedback. Likewise, Fitbit, the San Francisco company founded in 2007 to provide fitness-tracking hardware and software, produces gadgets that measure athletes’ steps. Its sales surged to £486m in 2014, from just £9.3m in 2011, as runners and walkers took up its technology.

The company claims Fitbit users take 43 per cent more steps with the device, creating increased health and fitness and higher energy and contentment levels.

Its corporate wellness programme works with clients such as BP, Diageo and Adobe to increase employee productivity and staff retention and foster a culture of well-being.

“We think the device is easy to use, makes people aware of how little they are walking and helps trigger people to get active,” says Karl Dalal, BP’s director of health and protection.

Developments in gaming tech are leveraging the passion around key sports to create a new category of engagement

Other commercial partners of British Athletics that recognise the value of association with personal fitness and healthiness include Polar, the heart monitor makers who, since 2006, have provided equipment to athletes such as Jenny Meadows, Tasha Danvers and David Weir.

Its devices offer users fitness tests, training and nutrition advice and GPS tracking of speed, distance and altitude.

Developments in gaming technology, meanwhile, are leveraging the passion around key sports to create a whole new category of engagement that requires no physical effort.

FanDuel, founded in 2009 in Edinburgh and now based in New York, claims to be world leader in one-week fantasy sports events and has more than one million paying users.

Players draft fantasy sports teams at any time of the season and pay an entry fee to compete in individual or multi-player contests for cash prizes.

Backed by $363m (£233m) of venture-capital funding, FanDuel offers fantasy gaming in major US sports, the market for which is valued at $4bn.

With stars such as Usain Bolt, Mo Farah and Jessica Ennis-Hill commanding huge fanbases, could athletics become another beneficiary? It’s possible. That, however, is a race in which the starting pistol has yet to be fired.