The UCI Track Champions League was launched last week in Palma de Mallorca and will experience it second stage in Berlin. It will be the second time to experience a competition dedicated to bringing together the elite of track cycling and, at the same time, introducing great new technologies in this sport.
The goal is to deliver it as a great show, something that can already be appreciated at the beginning of the competition. This combination between sport and avant-garde will grow as the stages pass and more resources are available to teach the unusual faces of track cycling. “On the Saint-Quentin stage (November 26) we will install projectors on the ceiling to create an innovative show. The goal is to make it easier for fans to follow the races“, he said a few days ago during the presentation of the event James Popesports director of the competition.
The goal is clear: to achieve loyalty among the public who see the competition. For this, the UCI Track Champions League promotes the broadcasting of content parallel to the races. “We want to tell a story to give people context. Offer performance data using different tools, graphs…”, Pope explained. For this, the UCI Track Champions League talked to a company in California that will manage this work. A team of about forty people was set up to offer competition from all possible points of view. This will encourage interaction between fans and cyclists.
This is what is known as ‘metaverse’, the big bet for the UCI Track Champions League this season. The UCI implements a system in which it is possible to follow the competition from two places: cameras to see from all possible prisms everything that happens on the track and data that transmits all the information about the performance of the cyclists. So, the camera that sends the image to the television will be supplemented by at least fifteen from that parallel vision. “It is possible to follow referees, particularly a cyclist… The metaverse will have a simple Internet domain that can be accessed by an avatar, without geographic restriction,” said the sports director. Francois Ribeiro.
This is an innovative system that is expected to work in the final in London and will be the best next season. “Many people have thought about creating this ‘metaverse’. We decided to stop thinking and implement it”explained Ribeiro. This system will allow access to metrics and the speed and power data that cyclists have during competition so that fans can better understand the performance of the ‘pistards’. To do this, cyclists will have sensors that will tell all the data, which will allow having different metrics from all of them to establish performance comparisons.
The UCI and the organization are clear that this system is necessary. “If Formula 1 can now be seen without data, people will only endure ten minutes in front of the television”, reflects the organizers. “We want track cycling to be the same,” they said. The goal is to send fans all the data and, more importantly, the context that goes with it. “It’s a necessary bet for people to get into our sport,” agrees Sebastián Mora.
This is not the only step that the UCI Track Champions League wants to take. It even opens the door to show in the future, using this data system, how doping can vary the effect of runners’ performance, a leading sports bet. These are innovative bets to try to continue establishing a competition dedicated to the moment not to overload the product, waiting to definitely combine and see if it can be exported outside of Europe in future editions .
This is one of the most difficult tasks these series face and one of their greatest challenges. Because of the calendar, because you don’t want to overload the cyclists, and because of the logistics, it seems difficult for the jump to be done outside of Europe or that they are overloaded at the weekend in every venue with a double stage. The UCI Track Champions League wants to continue walking and, to do so, it is clear that technology must be one of its leaders.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Robert Maynard, and I am a passionate journalist with experience in sports writing. For the last few years, I have been writing for Today Times Live. My main focus has been on sports-related stories and features. With my strong background in journalism and extensive knowledge of the industry, I am able to provide readers with well-crafted pieces that are both informative and engaging.
