Funded by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, the Olympic Laboratory is the product of a collaboration between the COB and nine Brazilian teaching and research institutions. It is located within the Team Brazil Training Centre, which was built by the COB at the Maria Lenk Aquatics Centre in preparation for Rio 2016.
The training centre regularly welcomes hundreds of athletes from 12 different Olympic disciplines (athletics, karate, artistic gymnastics, judo, synchronised swimming, swimming, diving, snowboard, tennis, sailing, beach volleyball and wrestling).
The lab is kitted out with a range of state-of-the-art equipment, which is designed to facilitate the performance management of elite athletes across a range of different sports.
The laboratory is a legacy from the Rio 2016 Games and is working at full capacity during this Olympic cycle that ends in Tokyo 2020. All the work is being done so as to collect and supply data to those who will be responsible for improving training quality for our elite athletes.
The idea behind the lab is to help improve the performance of Brazil’s Olympic athletes by ensuring that they, their coaches and their national associations have access to all of the latest research and developments in sports science. Coaches are able to use the results of evaluation and monitoring programmes to develop and hone the training programmes for their athletes, which, as well as helping them improve performance and outcomes, can also reduce the risk of injury.
The work is coordinated by the COB’s High-Performance Management team. “The laboratory is a legacy from the Rio 2016 Games and is working at full capacity during this Olympic cycle that ends in Tokyo 2020,” explains COB President, Carlos Arthur Nuzman. “All the work is being done so as to collect and supply data to those who will be responsible for improving training quality for our elite athletes.”
The parameters of the performance analysis programmes vary for each sport, with the COB working in partnership with the respective national association to ensure that they are relevant for each sport.