www.stadiaworld.com SPORTS VENUES 2023/24 | 83 TECHNOLOGY As one of the world’s leading manufacturers of sports flooring, Conica is represented on every continent – with a complete product range that extends from equipping schools to the high-end competition facilities in the world’s leading athletics stadiums. For example, athletes in Diamond League meetings run and jump for records on Conica sports surfaces – currently in Lausanne, Monaco, Stockholm and Zurich. And as an official partner of the European Athletics Association, Conica is also closely involved in all processes involving track surfaces in the continental association. Of course, now that the synthetic running track has replaced red ash for decades, any products on the market have been perfected and adapted to the strict set of rules of the associations and the standards in the respective countries. But development does not stand still at Conica. For the athletes with their top performances and records, it’s all about fractions of a second and millimetres – and at the same time about the sensory perception of the running track, which has a lot to do with the athletes’ body feeling. Health aspects are immensely important for the athletes and inseparably linked to top performances. And it is precisely in this complex of topics that Conica sees potential for further optimisation of the product portfolio. Details can make the difference. And the company is now taking a closer look at these details. In cooperation with numerous athletes and within the framework of scientific research. A unique research laboratory has been built at the Offenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany. In the field of sports and motion mechanics, the “Advanced Motion Lab” is investigating the factors that contribute to athletes performing better and at the same time injuring themselves less. The project is led by Professor Dr. Steffen Willwacher, who has been conducting groundbreaking research in the field of motion mechanics for years, and has already worked with top athletes such as Olympic champions Usain Bolt and Markus Rehm. What does Dr. Willwacher expect from the new laboratory? “A great deal,” he says. “We are doing research on the interaction of people within environmental conditions. How do different properties of the environments – the ground, for example – influence the way people generate force? The added value here is to develop a better understanding to enable the improvement of athletic performance, but also to minimise the risk of injury.” Willwacher’s team finds optimal technical conditions in the new facility, especially for researching the athletic movement of people on different surfaces. Of course, this is very much in the direction of high-performance sports, which the projects focusses on. “In the future, however, we would also like to conduct research on surfaces for schools or recreational facilities, as well as work on the sustainability of running tracks,” adds Willwacher. As there are more disciplines than running, each sport has its own characteristics that make it worth looking at details and research biomechanical procedures. That is another topic the scientists are looking at as part of their research. If you were trying to develop an optimal surface for each discipline, those surfaces would most likely be different. Willwacher says: “Part of our research is looking at whether developing different surfaces for different athletic disciplines makes more sense for performance and injury risk reasons than continuing to develop the rather compromising ‘all-rounder’ surface currently in use around the world.” Better results, less injuries Conica invests in research and collaboration with athletes to further optimise running surfaces. Recently, a research facility was commissioned in Germany for this purpose. ADVERTORIAL CONICA AG Industriestrasse 26 CH – 8207 Schaffhausen Phone: +41 52 6443600 Email: info@conica.com Web: www.conica.com Advanced Motion Lab: Demo by Prof. Willwacher. Pictures: CONICA AG
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