Category Archives: Tech of Sports

From the shoes we wear on our feet to the high definition televisions in our living room, wearable devices, the sports universe is a breeding ground for technology. Writer and Photographer Rick Limpert will examine this each week on The Tech of Sports – With guests which include athletes, inventors and journalists that cover the intersection of sports and technology.

Richard Spurling, Founder and Executive Director of Aceing Autism

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Great to be joined by Aceing Autism’s Richard Spurling this week.

He’s doing fantastic work with putting tennis racquets in the hands of people who have never experienced tennis and success on the tennis court.

Richard attended Florida Atlantic University where he played Division I tennis and achieved his degree in International Business. Following graduation, Richard went on to teach tennis while maintaining his own pro status on the tour, including managing various high profile tennis programs in Florida, Boston and Cape Cod.

Richard earned his MBA in 2008 from Babson College where he focused on entrepreneurship. Richard lives in Los Angeles with his wife Shafali Jeste and their two children Nischal and Kiran.

Here is the vision of Aceing Autism:

With our organization now firmly established and with our program delivery model now proven to achieve meaningful benefits, for the foreseeable future we intend to grow the number of participants on an annual basis across the U.S. to 4,500 by the end of 2021. In so doing, we plan to be overseeing 80-90 program sites throughout the U.S. together with establishing the necessary operating and support infrastructure to successfully fund, maintain and improve our activities. Beyond the number of children served, we intend to enhance our program offerings, so as to achieve ever-improving service delivery outcomes for the children and families being served, volunteer training and engagement, as well as all other stakeholders. At the same time, we expect to improve our organization capacity so as to be positioned to serve a significantly larger population of participants thereafter. As we embark on this vision, we believe a variety of additional opportunities will emerge that will enable us to enhance our organization and the benefits delivered to our stakeholders in a variety of new and exciting ways.

Enjoy Rick’s talk with Richard!

Richard Spurling of Aceing Autism

Gavin Dear, CCO at Shot Scope

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Rick is joined by a great guy, Gavin Dear, of Shot Scope, an innovative golf tech company in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Shot Scope has now released their V2 here in the U.S. and it’s a great golf product to help improve your game and keep track of your personal golf data.

Shot Scope is out of pre-sale and available for purchase. The pre-sale of V2 ran from August to November, 2017 and gave golfers the opportunity to purchase the product at a reduced introductory price. Golfers from 32 countries took advantage of this limited-time offer and have since amassed over 8,000 rounds of golf, despite being off-season in most countries.

Shot Scope information can be found at www.shotscope.com.

Shot Scope is easy to use as it’s a watch that give your real-time data.

Shot Scope V2 is fully waterproof and adjusts to 11 wrist-sizes. The system includes 20 lightweight tags which screw into your clubs and can be customized in your account to identify what is in your bag.

It has three modes; GPS, PRO and GPS+Track to suit different playing environments.

Dynamic Yardages

An in-built Smart GPS chip provides dynamic Front/Middle/Back distances, in meters or yards, from anywhere on the course. Distances update with every adjustment, based on detailed course mapping, giving you more accurate information than competitor products.
Automatic performance tracking

Industry-leading technology works in the background to automatically collect performance data. Wearing V2 as a watch allows it to communicate with the tags in the grip of your clubs, gathering data for post-round analysis completely in the background.

Upload

Data is uploaded via USB or Bluetooth to free iOS, Android or Desktop apps.

Review

Access a unique perspective of your game by reviewing your shots on an overhead course map. Every shot is plotted onto the course using GPS, so you can relive and review every round.

Improve

Over 100 Tour-level statistics are broken down into four key sections: tee shots, approaches, short game and putting. Using interactive graphs, maps and charts the data comes alive and provides invaluable information for on and off course game management and improvement.

Gavin played college golf here in the US as an elite golfer for 11 years (amateur and professional), including representing GB and I in the 2009 Walker Cup.

Great to talk with Gavin and get your Shot Scope here.

Gavin Dear of Shot Scope

Juan Carlos Báguena, Former ATP Tour Tennis Player for Sportco

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Sportco is looking to change the way fans experience their favorite sports.

How is the Spanish tennis player going to change the lives of all sports fans?

Rick is joined by former Spanish ATP Tour player, Juan Carlos Báguena, this week.

A surprising move, linking sport and technology, is designed to change people’s news consumption and upgrade the status of sports fans in the media

The former ATP tennis player, Báguena, will act as a Sports Advisor in a new venture. Báguena, reached the semi-finals in Hypo Group Tennis International at Bari, Italy, in 1988. He made the second round of the men’s doubles in the 1989 French Open (Roland Garros) in Paris. His career highlight happened in 1990 when Báguena teamed up with Omar Camporese (Ranked 18 in his prime) to win the Madrid Grand Prix Trophy. The Spaniard made his best performance of the year in Florence, where he and Carlos Costa, one of the leading clay court players in the early 1990s, were doubles runners-up.

Báguena chose to partner with Sportco – a site which gathers sports fans discourse, using an innovative technology which will reward readers for any involvement on the site. The fascinating tech project seeks to unite all sports fans under one umbrella brand and change the way sports fans will play a role in the future of sports media.

Sportco recently announced to its 500k readers, in a statement published on their websites, that an algorithm will measure their readers’ involvement and reward them with sports tickets and merchandises for any action they perform on the site, whether it’s content writing, sharing, etc. Sportco currently possesses sports fans community platforms (websites, apps, social media channels) such as Cricwizz, Sportswizz, SportsQwizz, Sportswizzleague and more.

Báguena expressed his support in an announcement on the Sportco’s website: “Sports is an industry that is motivated by passion, by both players and fans, and Sportco’s platform takes it to the next step. The project was aided by brilliant technology that reached maturity, and I was very sympathized with the idea that in essence put the sports fans in the center. I see the project as great potential and real news in the field of communications and sports”.

Báguena remained close to sports after retiring and currently coaches the future generation of Tennis at the Barcelona Tennis Training Center.

Juan Carlos Baguena

 

Felicia Romero, From Fit to Fat to Fit and International Women’s Day

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International Women’s Day is March 8th, so Rick is joined by fitness expert, Felicia Romero to talk about that, getting fit and advice for staying fit and healthy.

Felicia Romero is a celebrity health and fitness expert, and recently appeared on the second season of the Lifetime hit, “From Fit to Fat to Fit.” Earlier this year she also launched her online fitness and nutrition platform, and launched a program in collaboration with Drew Manning, the creator of From Fit to Fat to Fit. Felicia’s previous success includes several national and world titles as a fitness competitor and becoming a 7-time cover model.

She gives tips on how she climbed the ranks in Hollywood to become “Self-Made”.

After graduating from Arizona State University with a B.A in Poly Science and a Master in Exercise and Wellness, Felicia began to pursue a career as a fitness competitor. She went on to complete in the United States and internationally at the Pro level for 8 years before retiring. She would finish her career with 5 Pro wins, 3 top 4 finishes at the Figure International and a top 5 finish at the Figure Olympia. As a result of this success, Felicia launched her own competitive fitness show, The Felicia Romero Classic, which is an NPC national qualifier that takes place annually.

This was just the beginning for the health and fitness expert. In 2015, she opened her gym FR Fit Method, offering functional training classes to men and women. This was followed by a number of new business ventures, including launching FeliciaRomero.com, her online fitness and nutrition consulting, landing a role on season 2 of “From Fit to Fat to Fit,” on cable television network, Lifetime and securing several corporate wellness collaborations.

See more at www.feliciaromero.com

Career Highlights

 Felicia’s success as a fitness competitor made her a 7-time cover model for Flex Magazine, and allowed her to grace the covers of Muscle and Fitness, Oxygen, Ironman, Fitness RX, and Scottsdale Health.

 With years of experience providing health and wellness consulting, Felicia has become a highly-sought out speaker and regularly delivers presentations on health and wellness topics globally.

 In 2015, Felicia launched her gym FR Fit Method, in Gilbert, Ariz., which offers a variety of functional training classes for men and women.

 Felicia is seen as the go-to expert on all things health and wellness. As a result, she is a regular TV personality on television news programs in the Phoenix-Metropolitan area, including Good Morning Arizona, Your Life A to Z, Arizona Midday, Arizona Daily Mix, and The List, to name a few.

 Her fitness tips, wellness advice and healthy recipes have been seen in a variety of regional and national print, online and broadcast outlets including Cheddar TV, Her Magazine, Men’s Health, and The Daily Meal., to name a few.

 In 2016, Felicia was cast to be part of Lifetime’s hit weight loss reality show, From Fit to Fat to Fit, which premiered in January of 2018.

You can find more details about From Fit to Fat to Fit and check out episodes, here: http://www.mylifetime.com/shows/fit-to-fat-to-fit.

And enjoy her talk with Rick.

Felicia Romero

Dr. Erika Angle and Scott Tindal of Ixcela

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Getting into some good tech this week as Rick is joined by Dr. Erika Angle and Scott Tindal of Ixcela.

Like physical fitness, the fitness of your gut microbiome is critical to your overall health and wellness. Ixcela worked with ORACLE TEAM USA to improve internal health.

Ixcela was co-founded by Drs. Erika Ebbel Angle and Wayne Matson with a group of outstanding scientists (see the biographies of our amazing co-workers). All of us had developed technologies and methods for the study of a range of diseases for diagnosis, predictive diagnostic risk factors and specification of therapy (personalized medicine). Tindal is the Head Nutritionist at Ixcela. Dr. Angle Angle is a renowned biochemist, former Miss America competitor, founder of gut health start up, Ixcela, and also the wife of iRobot co-founder, Colin Angle.

After deep analysis of the complex biochemical profiles for over 1000 compounds in several thousand subjects, it became clear to us that the microbiome (the some 6-10,000 species in the gut – second largest organ in the body) was a critical part of the biochemical web distinguishing normal from disease subjects. Understanding these webs could also allow the prediction of therapeutic response. Additionally, the biochemistry of the microbiome had direct links to the function of other organs including the brain.

This led us beyond the ideas of diagnosis and therapy to the concept of promoting biochemical wellness (“internal health”) through measurement and control of the microbiome with specific, personalized intervention based on testing.

This year, Dr. Erika and Ixcela collaborated with TEAM ORACLE USA in preparation for this year’s America’s cup, the gold standard of competitive sailing. Erika and her team provided the defending champions individualized gut therapy that dramatically increased availability and performance on the water. It worked for these world-renowned athletes and now Erika is bringing the same internal fitness solutions to the rest of the world.

The Boston Business Journal selected Erika as one of the “40 Under 40″ business and civic leaders who are making a major impact in their respective fields in the Boston area. Selected by L’Oreal Paris as a Woman of Worth for her work, Erika has been featured on Lifetime TV and Nova Science Now on “The Secret Lives of Scientists and Engineers.” A biochemist with degrees from BU and MIT, Erika is extremely passionate and generally very inspiring.

This week, they join Rick.

Tindal headshot by Peter Hurley
By Sam Greenfeld
BY Sam Greenfeld

Chip Beck, Three-time Ryder Cup Member, Pitchfix Spokesperson

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Rick is joined by one of the nicest guys in golf, and most well respected, three-time Ryder Cup member and four-time winner on the PGA Tour, Chip Beck.

Beck was at the 2018 PGA Show for Pitchfix.

Pitchfix USA, a global market leader in switchblade divot tools, recently announced that is has retained former PGA Tour and PGA Tour Champions player Chip Beck as Ambassador for its Fusion 2.5 divot tool, named “Best Divot Repair Tool” by Golf Digest in their Editors’ Choice Awards for two consecutive years. Beck will represent Pitchfix at the 2018 PGA Merchandise show, PGA Show Demo Day and future events.

The second player in PGA Tour history to shoot a 59 (1991 Las Vegas Invitational) and a three-time U.S. Ryder Cup Team member with a 6-2-1 record, Beck will demonstrate the Fusion 2.5 at Demo Day on Tuesday, January 22 at Orange County National Golf Center from 9 a.m.- 5 p.m. Beck will greet customers and media, share stories about his career and offer his thoughts about the Fusion 2.5, at the Pitchfix booth (#2015) at the PGA Merchandise Show on Wednesday, January 23. Following the show, Beck will make appearances at clinics and golf events nationwide. Beck is also a former All-American at Georgia.

Rick and Chip talk about Pitchfix, the state of golf, respecting the golf course and the Georgia Bulldogs.

Notes on Pitchfix: Since it’s inception in 2005 Pitchfix has gone from it’s Original model to a complete line of golf accessories golfers use on and around the green. We strive to constantly improve and extend our product line to equip golfers with tools that improve their game experience and at the same time improve the game experience of fellow golfers. Our latest product, the patented Pitchfix Twister 2.0, is the most easy to use divot repair tool ever. Divot repair has never been as easy and effective as with the Twister 2.0. With this new product we contribute to lowering the number of unattended divot marks and improve the course quality golf course owners offer their players and guests.

Have a listen to Rick and Chip!

Chip Beck and Pitchfix