Sheffield residents to benefit from unique technology used by Team GB's '˜golden generation'

Westfield Health has teamed up with Sheffield Hallam University to ensure that technology which helped our heroic sportsmen and women can also be used by members of the public at the Advanced Wellbeing Research Centre.

Technology developed at the university includes ‘iBoxer’ software, which offers detailed analysis on fighter’s opponents. Project leaders have now pledged to develop other key software-based analytics in a range of other sports at the AWRC, such as recording movements on pitches used for football and other ball games, gait analysis to measure running technique and body composition measuring equipment.

It will be operated and monitored by a team of more than 50 researchers and engineers.

David Capper, executive director of Westfield Health, said: “Seeing how the technology being created by Sheffield Hallam University has supported Team GB athletes during both the London and Rio Olympic Games is really inspiring as it is this unique combination of technology, sports science and psychology that will filter down, through the AWRC, to give a major health boost to the mainstream population too. We are working closely with the researchers and engineers at the AWRC in order to develop this technology and apply to the mainstream population, whether that be via the workplace or direct to the general public.”

The £14m centre is set to open next year as part of the Olympic Legacy Park on the site of the former Don Valley Stadium and is being billed as the ‘most advanced research and development centre for physical activity in the world.’

The new products and services developed at the AWRC will be taken from initial concept all the way through to market. In addition to the AWRC, the Olympic Legacy Park is set to include a 3, 000 capacity indoor arena, a 3G pitch with 2, 500 spectator stand and a hotel, plus other leisure facilities.