The development of sports engineering around the world

Sport Engineering is a new area of research that gained popularity at the end of the 20th century, despite being around for hundreds of years previously. The effect of sports engineering on individuals, sports and big business is analysed. For tennis, golf, pole vault and the 100 m sprint it is found that there was continual improvement over the 1900's. Only in the pole vault, however, was there a clear suggestion that technology influenced the sport significantly with increases of jump height of over 240mm between Olympic Games after the introduction of glass fibre poles in 1964. It is suggested that the majority of improvement in sports is through improvements in coaching, training, physiology and nutrition. The claim that the sport is 'big business' is assessed and the research output in the area analysed. It was found that the research output from the US was grossly underrepresented.