December 2022, Articles

Paris 2024 Innovation projects underway

Innovation project applications for cycling, snow sports and canoe racing were successful in this year’s second HPSNZ funding round, with work underway on seven projects across the three sports.

Head of Innovation Simon Briscoe says the three successful sports are strong users of HPSNZ’s research capability.

 “We have developed some truly world leading innovations for these sports in the past – think Corey Peters’ sit ski and the Virtual Reality (VR) preparation application for Beijing 2022.”

Five of the seven successful innovation projects currently underway use HPSNZ’s Innovation Delivery Network who have world class expertise in the areas of aerodynamics, VR (virtual reality), carbon fabrication and apparel development.

Simon says two of the innovation projects will be developed using HPSNZ’s internal resource in the areas of data logging and analysis systems.

In addition to the seven projects which have HPSNZ funding approved, Simon says there are more longer-term innovation projects for other sports in the pipeline so this current group of projects is very manageable and spreading the load of innovation projects means there will be plenty of capacity once more land.

“The seven projects underway and the pipeline of upcoming projects which will land early next year are all targeting innovation developments to enhance our Paris 2024 podium prospects.”