Students discover gold on visit to city gym

Some of New Zealand's brightest students went to the gym to find out how high technology helps the country win Olympic gold medals.

Athens rowing gold medallists Caroline and Georgina Evers-Swindell honed their winning technique with special goggles developed by the Auckland University of Technology (AUT). They could watch themselves on video in a corner of the goggles while they rowed.

Last week, science students handpicked by their schools for the Genesis Research national science and technology forum in Auckland, visited AUT's New Zealand Institute of Sport and Recreation Research to find out how scientists came up with such ideas.

Natalie McEwan, 17, from St Hilda's Collegiate in Dunedin, said after testing her jumping ability that she "would be quite interested in taking this further".

Auckland Girls' Grammar student Ramya Pasupula, 16, who measured Natalie's jumps electronically, was still determined to become a cardiologist like her uncles in India and the United States. But sports science looked "really cool".

The institute's director, former Olympic gymnast Dr Patria Hume, said the video-goggles used by the Evers-Swindell sisters were originally developed for other sports in Queensland, but had been adapted by AUT for rowing, gymnastics, power-lifting and golf.

National rowing coach Dick Tonks took the system to Athens and AUT has sold systems to the US Olympic Committee, several overseas sports institutes and golf clubs.

Rowing NZ high performance manager Andrew Matheson said the goggles were used by most of New Zealand's top rowers.

"The coach runs alongside on the coach boat filming and can play it through to you on the goggles," he said. "You can talk about the mistakes. If you can see it, you can't argue with what's on the screen, particularly if you are getting it in real time."

AUT doctoral graduate Clara Soper has also developed instruments to help rowers adjust their foot-plates so that the force of their feet helps to propel the boat forward rather than downwards.

Other scientists in the institute have developed exercise machines for specific muscles which Dr Hume predicts will soon become standard equipment in the world's gyms.

The 144 students in the Genesis science forum also spent time with some of the country's leading biologists, chemists, physicists, food scientists, computer experts and psychologists.

Their two-week programme is sponsored by Genesis Research and Development and Rotary clubs, and includes six exchange students from Australia. Six of the young New Zealanders will attend the equivalent forum in Canberra and two will go to a similar forum in London.