Biomechanical support for bladerunners
When Canadian wheelchair racer Austin Smeenk sped around the track at the 2016 Paralympic Games, he did so with a piece of foam tucked beside him to keep him secure in his chair. When he lines up at the rescheduled 2021 Paralympic Games this summer, he won’t need the foam. He’ll be in a lighter, better-fitting chair – one he slides into like a hand into a glove. “Now we’re in a place where, if I were being picked up by a harness around my chest, my chair would come right with me,” Smeenk says, adding that the technology for para racers is “leaps and bounds” ahead of where it was four years ago. Carla Nicholls, Athletics Canada’s para performance lead, says technology is a critical factor in getting Canada’s wheelchair racers and para runners on the podium, and it’s part of the reason para athletes are getting better and better – as demonstrated by the dozens of world records set at the 2019 World Para Athletics Championships. “Innovations and advances are just small parts, but yet so large in improving our athletes’ performance,” she says. “You miss one piece, and performance will suffer, no matter how hard the athlete actually trained and prepared.” gloves that let athletes produce more power than the soft gloves used previously.
Athletics Canada is also collecting more data on its wheelchair athletes. With support from Own the Podium, the organization has put sensors on athletes’ chairs, allowing coaches to gather data on factors such as power output. “This is just the beginning of something that I think is really going to open up a whole bunch of room for improvement with our athletes,” says Nicholls.
Canada’s para runners with blade prosthetics are using the best technology available, according to Nicholls, and recent work has focused on making sure biomechanics are sound and athletes are getting everything they can out of their prosthetics.
Lindsay Musalem, a sport biomechanist with Athletics Canada who travels to training camps and meets with the para team, makes sure athletes can create appropriate forces through a prosthetic or chair to get the best power output, and that prosthetics and chairs fit appropriately. “If you make a change to a prosthetic, or you make a change to a wheelchair, you could potentially make the athlete more efficient,” she says.