Athletes online

December 3, 2009

Tracking Olympic athletes online

U of C Kinesiology researchers create database to keep tabs on Team Canada

Larry Katz (centre) with fellow researchers Jennifer Vincent and Nick Bass. / Photo: Ken Bendiktsen

As we get closer and closer to the Vancouver Games, Canada’s Olympic athletes and their sports are getting more profile and that’s creating a demand for information.

Faculty of Kinesiology researcher, Dr. Larry Katz, the head of the Sports Technology Research Lab, is unveiling a new way for Canadians to keep track of their favourite Winter Olympic athletes or to keep tabs on how our Canadian Olympic teams are performing.

“Own The Podium 2010 was looking for a way to track the performance of Canadian athletes and teams preparing for the Winter Olympics in comparison to the rest of the world,” explains Katz. “So in collaboration with Own the Podium, we created an online database that will give Canadians instant access to athlete and Canadian Team performances over the last 10 years.”

Canadians can access the performance database on Own The Podium 2010’s official website: www.ownthepodium2010.com. Once on the page, just click on the stopwatch with the heading “Get The Results.”

The database provides information on an athlete or a team’s performance going back as far as 1997-98. People can search by athlete, team, competition or year. The site is updated regularly, so Canadians can follow an athlete or team’s performance as they get ready for the Vancouver 2010 Games.

“I’m excited to see the project finished,” says Katz. “It’s been a long two years to finish, but I really believe the performance database is a valuable tool. It will help Canadians to become more connected to our athletes, it will help Own the Podium to see where our athletes stand in comparison to the rest of the world, and of course, it will help people answer trivia questions or settle arguments in the blink of an eye.”