The doctoral thesis “Methodological aspects for the sports performance analysis in orienteering”, carried out by Antonio Salguero Pérez and directed by Paulino Padial Puche and Carlos Pablos Abella, is an answer to the problem of observing the events which take place in certain sports categories in the environment.
In the middle of the XXI century, audiovisual media make most recreational and sports activities monitoring possible. However, those which take place in the environment find difficulties in using the most usual technology (video, photographs, TV cameras, etc.). In addition you can not always have the media display of a world marathon championship, an Olympic cross-country skiing race or the tour of France. Therefore, this work has done research into the possibilities of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to monitorize sportmen in open spaces.
After the tests, it has been proved that the GPS system has enough precision to register the speed and the trajectory, both in standardized spaces (athletics track) and in the environment (in and outside the forest). The positioning system is válvalid for the pursued objectives and the information obtained makes the analysis of the events of sports activities in the environment easier; especially, it has been applied to orienteering sport as it is difficult to monitorize.
GPS implementation was traditionally limited to professional works geodesy and cartography. However, as it has more and more possibilities, especially since selective availability was removed in May of 2000, its possibilities are increasing, including sports ones as it has been proved with this research work.
Further information: Antonio Salguero Pérez. Thesis author. Phone number: 629-691376.
E-mail: direccion@puertodelaragua.com
