Smart athletics track launched at Cardiff Met to transform athlete development and student learning
Cardiff Metropolitan University has become home to a game-changing intelligent athletics track capable of providing real-time performance data during everyday training, creating exciting new opportunities for athletes and their coaches.
The pioneering technology, developed by sports innovation company Feldspar and installed at the National Indoor Athletics Centre (NIAC) in Cardiff, is being trialled through an 18-month partnership between Cardiff Met and Feldspar. It is the first time this technology has been embedded in an indoor athletics centre.
The innovative track captures detailed information about how athletes move and perform while they train, providing immediate feedback that can help improve technique, monitor progress and reduce injury risk.
The project will give Cardiff Met students hands-on experience with cutting-edge sports technology, allowing them to work alongside leading researchers, coaches and performance practitioners in a real-world high-performance environment.
The installation includes a 60-metre section of running track, with a 20-metre instrumented zone embedded with advanced sensors. The system can measure more than 50 performance indicators, helping coaches and athletes better understand movement patterns, force production and running efficiency.
Researchers at Cardiff Met will lead a programme of work to assess the technology's effectiveness and explore how it can be used across sport, rehabilitation and athlete development.
Gareth Irwin, Professor of Sport Biomechanics at Cardiff Met, said: "What makes this installation particularly significant is its potential to bridge the gap between laboratory-grade measurement and everyday training environments.
"Traditionally, obtaining detailed biomechanical information has involved multiple technologies, specialist interpretation and significant processing time. Feldspar offers the opportunity to collect rich force and movement data continuously, across an instrumented surface, and provide meaningful feedback almost immediately.
"The collaboration provides an excellent opportunity to examine the scientific validity, reliability and practical application of the technology. Our focus will be athlete-centred, coach-led and research-informed, ensuring the insights generated are robust and highly impactful."
The partnership is expected to benefit a wide range of Cardiff Met students, particularly those studying sport science, strength and conditioning, coaching, physiotherapy and performance analysis. By working with data collected in a live sporting environment, students will gain valuable experience with technology that could shape the future of high-performance sport.
Alvina Chen, Founder and CEO of Feldspar, said: "For decades, the most valuable biomechanical data in sport has largely been confined to laboratories, specialist equipment and time-intensive analysis. We believe the future is different: the training environment, and ultimately live competition itself, can become the measurement system.
"This collaboration with Cardiff Metropolitan University is an important step towards that future. By bringing continuous biomechanical insight into everyday training, we want to help athletes and coaches understand performance in ways that simply haven’t been possible before.”