Top Secret contributions

Alpine skier Kelly VanderBeek’s lifelong dream of winning an Olympic medal was shattered when she missed the podium by three hundredths of a second in the Super-G event, during the 2006 Turino Winter Games.

Today, Gerard Lachapelle and his team of researchers at the University of Calgary hope their work with Canada’s alpine ski team and GPS systems will prevent a similar result at the upcoming 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

Canada's alpine ski team took to the slopes with Gerard Lachapelle's state-of-the-art GPS system

Lachapelle is among 150 researchers from 17 universities and institutions across the country who have been working to improve equipment, technology, information and training for Canadian athletes through the federally-financed Own the Podium program’s five-year, $8-million Top Secret Project.

In 2004, the project combined ideas from Canada’s 13 national winter sport organizations, businesses, and universities and recruited the country’s top researchers to work on 55 prioritized projects.

The projects were separated into four areas: competition clothing, ice sports, snow sports and human performance.

The Project’s manager, Todd Allinger says it was an easy process to find researchers for the different areas.

“We have the experts in Canada. We really don’t need to go overseas to find the experts in all areas of sport,” he says. “It’s just that in the past, we haven’t had the resources or funding that promoted them to help out.”

In preparation for the Vancouver 2010 Olympics, they did. Each project received a relatively equal piece of the funding pie.

Lachapelle, an expert in GPS systems, got $20,000 from Top Secret as well as additional funds from the province of Alberta, for his alpine GPS project, which aimed to help the ski team determine the quickest route from the gate to the finish line.

Lachapelle believes everyone benefitted from the partnership.

“It went well because the coaches and skiers we worked with were very open to try this new technology,” Lachapelle says. “It’s wonderful for our athletes because it will hopefully provide them with the winning edge.”

More than skiers benefit

The Canadian Curling Association had already recruited Pierre Baudin, a sport scientist at the University of Alberta, before the Top Secret Project provided him with $100,000 to study the biomechanics of the curling throw.

Baudin converted a curling rink in Edmonton into a long-term research centre where curlers and their coaches can dissect the subtleties of their game, for example how they throw the rock or where to place their brooms.

We have the experts in Canada. We really don’t need to go overseas to find the experts in all areas of sport

He says the money from Top Secret was very important in leaving a legacy for curling in Canada.

“Money like that hasn’t been available for this sport’s research for almost 30 years,” Baudin says. “We now have a one-of-a-kind research facility that serves as a space for Canada’s developing high-performance curlers.”

An expert in fluid mechanics, Savvas Hatzikiriakos submitted ideas to Top Secret during a meeting at the University of British Columbia in 2006.

The organization liked his friction-reducing prototype compound for the base of skis and gave Hatzikiriakos’ team of UBC researchers $400,000 to develop it and another friction-reducing prototype for the base of speed skates.

Future prospects

It's unclear what level of funding will continue for winter athletes after the 2010 Games.

Allinger says the Top Secret project could unfortunately be the first to take a hit.

Savvas Hatzikiriakos' friction-reducing ski base prototype has already paid off on the World Cup circuit for Canada's winter athletes

“I don’t want to leave the traction and knowledge we’ve gained and all the expertise of the universities that we’ve engaged,” he says. “It would be a shame if all of the research we’ve done dies.”

For some researchers in the project, like Hatzikiriakos, work will continue even if funding is lost.

“The technologies we’ve been working with can be applied to different areas like in nanodevices and medical implants,” he says. “We’re in the process of putting together some applications and using whatever we’ve gained in the past three years to develop something new.”

Baudin says there is still work to be done in curling research, which will be helped with the permanent new research facility in Edmonton.

 “There are still questions that have to be answered and there are still things we’re trying to learn about curling,” he says. “We will continue to operate our research facility and study the game for Canada’s curlers.”

For others, like Lachapelle, a passion for sport keeps them working towards technological improvements.

“Whether OTP gets funding or not, I will be there with my team to continue to help our trainers and coaches use our technology and turn that into a long-term success.”

Success that he hopes will result in more podium finishes for Canadian skiers in Vancouver and in future Olympic Games.