"The Winter Olympics, like other large-scale sporting events, compete not only for the technical and tactical abilities of athletes, but also for the technological level of each country." Wang Jiadao, director of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Tsinghua University, once said this sentence in an interview, which can explain why the Chinese sports delegation to the Beijing Winter Olympics is called the largest in history, the most complete number of participating projects, and finally won 9 gold in history. So what are the representative scientific and technological means applied to the training and competition of the Chinese team, and what role they play, through this article to find out.
The technology behind the first gold medal of the Chinese Winter Olympics
The short-track speed skating project won the first gold medal for the Beijing Winter Olympics for the Chinese sports delegation, and the application of science and technology such as clothing and ice knives behind this first gold was indispensable. It is understood that the short track speed skating team's suits use full-body anti-cutting technology, while the anti-cutting fabric can firmly wrap the athlete's muscles to avoid the impact of body shaking on the competition. In terms of drag reduction, it is reported that clothing starts from the model to fabric manufacturing, has compared 56 kinds of clothing structures, and screened out the most suitable competition clothing structure for the technical and tactical characteristics of Chinese athletes, and the resistance reduction can be increased by 5% to 10% through wind tunnel testing.
Ren Ziwei (left) won the championship
In addition, the short track speed skating team's ice knives are also very exquisite. Traditional aluminum alloy ice knives are insufficient in weight and rebound toughness, and now the titanium alloy ice knives used by the Chinese short track speed skating team have a weight reduction of more than 10%. Secondly, the Beijing Winter Olympics cycle appeared for the processing, grinding blunt ice knife CNC ice knife grinder came out, this machine tool is equipped with three major systems - high-precision line laser measurement system, CNC ice knife grinder special CNC system, CNC ice knife grinder special fixture system, can be the ice knife arc online automatic measurement and data collection, can also be tailored according to the athletes suitable ice knife contour curve, can achieve the ice knife grinding accuracy from millimeter to micron level span.
The athletes of the Chinese short track speed skating team are also equipped with a product called a single-lead three-lead electrocardiometer, which can collect data such as ECG and blood pressure during training and competition for cardiac risk screening. The device can also arrange personalized training plans according to the athlete's maximum heart rate and reserve heart rate, and the recovery period can be monitored by the athlete's recovery status, providing data for the coach to more scientifically develop a recovery plan or post-training plan for the athlete.
During sleep, the device can also monitor the sleep quality of athletes, monitor the frequency of snoring breathing and poor sleep states such as intermittent or pseudo sleep through heart rate and ECG changes, timely find hidden dangers, and assess their physical recovery.
Wind tunnel technology has greatly increased training time
The most important thing to use the wind in the Winter Olympics is ski jumping, followed by snowmobile sledding, alpine skiing and other sports, all of which do not need to go against the wind.
China's ski jumping started late, and the national ski jumping team was officially established at the end of 2016, and the vast majority of athletes came from cross-border cross-sports, and the domestic training venues in the past were also limited. To this end, such a professional wind tunnel laboratory for ski jumping has been built in Laiyuan Ski Jumping Training and Scientific Research Base in Hebei Province. The biggest function of this wind tunnel is to simulate a wind field, so that athletes can feel the feeling of gliding in the wind, and the staff can collect data such as athletes' jump angle, aerial attitude, speed, distance and so on in real time to optimize training.
Ski jumping wind tunnel training
Most importantly, this wind tunnel technology overcomes the limitations of time and space, before the athletes often have to go abroad to train, often subject to the weather and put on and off equipment, take the elevator to spend a lot of time, athletes even in good weather conditions can only jump 10 to 15 times a day, flying in the air "wind" time is also very short. However, through the wind tunnel, athletes can not only extend the effective training time, but also achieve four-season training without being affected by weather conditions and seasons.
In addition to the ski jumping wind tunnel, there are also a number of wind tunnels such as the comprehensive wind tunnel, the small portable wind tunnel and the vertical wind tunnel of the Erqi Factory, which form a domestic wind tunnel training facility group with the professional wind tunnel of Laiyuan Ski Jumping. Among them, the comprehensive wind tunnel of the 27th Factory Can not only help bobsleigh athletes feel the gliding posture in the wind, but also allow alpine skiers to simulate the state of competition under the wind. It is reported that the Erqi Factory, a comprehensive wind tunnel, provided training services for 367 athletes from 15 ice and snow sports teams in the mainland before the Winter Olympics.
The potential in "Snow Dragon" is endless
Yan Wengang won the bronze medal in the Beijing Winter Olympics steel frame snowmobile project in the "Snow Tour Dragon", which is the first winter Olympic slide project medal in the mainland, and its historical status is self-evident, and it should be known that the Chinese steel frame snow team was officially established at the end of 2015.
Yan Wengang in the game
The starting speed of the cart is the most critical step in the steel frame snowmobile project, and the shoes worn by the athletes are an important part of the start-up. The domestic steel frame snowmobile shoes worn by the athletes of the Chinese team are tailored according to the foot type of each athlete through 3D printing technology, and the sole is embedded with 258 titanium alloy studs for the starting race. The shoes of Chinese athletes adopt the industry's original deflector plate and airfoil drag reduction design, which can reduce the wind resistance of the shoe body by 10%, the diversion line designed by biomimetic fluid mechanics can reduce the wall friction by 53.5%, and the nitrogen technology midsole has the characteristics of low temperature resistance and high resilience, and the material rebound rate is as high as 82.6%. It is reported that in the 2021 data test, the same athlete used this shoe to optimize the starting time by an average of 0.023 seconds compared with the past, and in the steel frame snowmobile event that was decided in the thousandth second position, 0.023 seconds was very impressive.
In addition, the Beijing Institute of Technology team also created a winter project intelligent training management system for the continental car skid project, which can realize the monitoring of the whole course of the track, the three-dimensional attitude and acceleration monitoring of the starting section, and the route monitoring of the curve section, which helps the athletes to improve their competition ability from the details.
The Chinese team in the snowmobile project also made a breakthrough in the scale and results of the competition. When the Chinese Snow Team was founded in 2016, it did not have its own regular track, nor did it have its own domestic snowmobile. Nowadays, the "Snow Dragon" is in Haituo, and the domestic snowmobile has also made a stunning appearance at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games.
The domestic snowmobile research and development project team was established in 2019, starting from the analysis of a decommissioned snowmobile. The domestic snowmobile uses aerospace-grade domestic T800-grade carbon fiber material, and the outer layer uses a special resin for high and low temperature alternating toughness. Specific to the body, the team conducted a comprehensive study and design of weight, size, low wind resistance, impact resistance and other aspects.
In January 2021, the first generation of domestic snowmobiles was developed and formed. Wind tunnel tests show that under the premise of meeting the norms of the Winter Olympic Games, its wind resistance coefficient is reduced by 8% compared with similar international products. After that, the optimization was carried out, and on September 10, 2021, the first batch of four second-generation domestic snowmobiles were officially delivered for use, and their handling and chassis stability were greatly improved.