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The Urban Sports Performance Centre, a new research and innovation lab for Urban Sports, will settle in Eindhoven. The aim of the USPC is to provide the urban sports scene with professional support and talent development. This should ensure the next step in their development of urban sports. The center has been active for some time but is currently looking for a permanent home at Strijp-S in order to be able to settle close to the scene itself. This place will then serve as a base for providing services to the five major cities in Brabant, but must also be suitable for accommodating students and researchers.

The center is an initiative of InnoSportLab Sport & Beweeg and Paramedisch Expertise Centrum Eindhoven BV. It works closely with the urban scene in Brabant, CTO Zuid, and BrabantSport (Events). Brabant has the ambition to organize urban events that are appealing worldwide, and to make urban sports structurally more professional.

The USPC focuses primarily on urban athletes who train in Brabant, and can be served to top-class athletes, talents and starting athletes alike. The focus is on BMX Freestyle, Skateboarding and Freerunning. In the long run, this might be extended to include disciplines such as Breakdance, Calisthenics, Stepping, and Tricking.

There will be a wide range of support for urban sportsmen and women, for example in the field of nutrition and health. The development and testing laboratory will be equipped with high-quality test and measurement facilities, including a Smart Speed system, a Motion 3D analysis system and various forms of video analysis. Thanks to the presence of top-class urban athletes and trainers, medical and technological specialists and the physical facilities of the testing and development laboratory, there is also a unique environment for carrying out both scientific and applied research.

Research projects will be based on questions and ideas from the athletes and trainers themselves. “There we put the knowledge and experience from ‘the traditional sports’ and our own networks alongside it”, a statement by Strijp-S based Sports & Technology says. “Through this approach of continuous co-creation and mutual cross-fertilisation, we arrive at new data, knowledge and innovations, resulting in opportunities for renewal of the sport, new (para)medical and preventive products and services, better sports performance, new or improved materials, support for jury assessments, better public experience and more people who will perform sports and physical activity themselves.”

Photo (c) Sports & Technology

More on USPC at Sports And Technology (Dutch)