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Scottish analytical software helps curling

Monday 30th November 2009
Vancouever's curling venue. Courtesy:http://rogersradiointernet.com/BC/CKWX/images/2007/curlingvenue1mar309.jpg

Great Britain's Olympic curlers, are to be allowed to use technology to learn how to combat Canada's home-ice advantage in Vancouver. The British team has beaten an attempt to block its plan to install rinkside cameras at the Vancouver Games as part of a high-tech performance-analysis system.

VANOC, the Vancouver organising committee, wanted to deny access to the end-zone platforms on which the British team planned to place its cameras. Footage from the cameras is fed into a computer program that analyses such factors as ice conditions, strategy and opponent tendencies.

The technology has been used by Scottish skip (right) David Murdoch, who beat Canada's Kevin Martin to win this year's world championship in Moncton, N.B., and will represent Great Britain at the Olympics.

According to the Inside the Games report, the British Olympic Association garnered the support of the World Curling Federation, which is based in Perth, Scotland, and persuaded Vancouver officials to back down.

A representative from VANOC said the organising committee would have no comment because the dispute is a World Curling Federation matter.

CBC Sports curling analyst Mike Harris played down potential advantages of using  video analysis system during the Games.

"At the Olympics, I don't think it's an advantage at all," Harris said. "Any information you can get on your opponents prior to the Games would be helpful … but the teams all know each other so well that I don't know there's going to be too many surprises."

Scottish curlers have long embraced technology and research, doing such things as measuring the downward force on their brooms to try to determine optimal sweeping techniques.

David Hay, (left) Britain's Olympic men's curling team coach, told Inside the Games that his squad must explore all possible advantages when competing against the likes of Canada, the world's top-ranked curling country.

"We are a nation of 30,000 curlers playing a nation where there are a million players," Hay said, adding that his team's computer program, which is developed in Scotland, is available for purchase by anyone. "We have to try new things to get an edge and we've a year or two lead on this."

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