The
first 17 papers in this (December) issue of the Journal of Sports Science
and Medicine are selected papers from the Eighth Australasian Conference
on Mathematics and Computers in Sport, held in Queensland in July 2006.
Of the first seven conferences, five were held at Bond University in Queensland,
one at the University of Technology in Sydney during the year of the Sydney
Olympics, and the last one was in New Zealand at Massey University. The
emerging discipline of mathematics and computers in sport has developed
under the auspices of the Australian and New Zealand Industrial and Applied
Mathematics (ANZIAM) Division of the Australian Mathematics Society through
an interest group known as MathSport, bringing together sports scientists
who are interested in
- mathematical
and statistical modelling in sport,
- the
use of computers in sport,
- the
application of these to improve coaching and individual performance,
and
- teaching
that combines mathematics, computers and sport.
This eighth conference in the series returned to Queensland but not at
Bond University, because campus accommodation for conference participants
was no longer available at that venue. Instead delegates gathered at the
Greenmount Beach Resort, which has been used during the past decade for
a number of Applied Mathematics Conferences. There were 33 papers presented
during the 3 days, across topics that covered a variety of individual
and team sports. Participants attended from the United Kingdom, France,
Germany, India, New Zealand and Australia. These participants were drawn
from those working in mainstream mathematics, statistics, computers science,
sports science support, coaching and education.
Professor Steve Clarke and Emeritus Professor Neville de Mestre have been
to all eight conferences and this year delivered papers on Australian
rules football and golf putting respectively. Tony Lewis, of the Duckworth-Lewis
formula for determining the winner in rain-affected international cricket
matches, has been a regular attendee since 1996 and once again presented
his latest views on fairer scoring systems in cricket. It was also great
to see Professor John Norman from Sheffield University appear again, as
he was at the first conference in 1992, and he presented his work on Naismith's
rule as it applies to competitive mountain trekking.
The MathSport community appreciated His Worship the Gold Coast Mayor and
former world record holder over middle distances, Ron Clarke, for giving
up some of his valuable time to officially open the conference. His opening
remarks both inspired the audience and put the science of sport into a
practical context through him relating his experiences in athletics. In
addition, we were fortunate to have two prominent sports scientists as
keynote speakers in Roger Bartlett (Professor of Sports Science at the
University of Otago) and Dr Stuart Morgan (Sports Scientist - Victorian
Institute of Sport) who delivered their keynote addresses "Artificial
Intelligence in Sports Biomechanics: New dawn or false hope?" and
"Synergy in Sport: directions, convergence and opportunity in high
performance sport".
The first 17 papers in this issue provide an array of topics that typified
the broad range of presentations at the conference. These include papers
covering research methodologies that span across mathematical modelling
and real-time computer analysis of movement through to biomechanical and
performance analysis. These analyses were applied to a variety of sports
such as football, tennis, cricket and swimming through to lawn bowls and
gymnastics.
The editors are grateful for the assistance given by the reviewers of
these papers, particularly Dr Keith Lyons (Australian Institute of Sport)
and Associate Professor Hugh Morton (Massey University), who were independent
of the conference participants.
John Hammond1
and Neville de Mestre2
Editors of
Mathematics and Computers in Sports' Articles
1School
of Education, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, Australia
2Bond University, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia
|
