PHILADELPHIA PA 4/26/05 Celebrating its 111th birthday in 2005, the Penn Relays are all about numbers�it's the oldest and largest meet of its kind, with more than 100,000 rabid fans expected to attend the three day event starting Thursday in Philadelphia at historic Franklin Field on the Univ. of Pennsylvania campus. Along with the quantity of participants and fans comes the quality of the competitors: at the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, for example, 23 Relay alums won gold medals and some of the biggest names internationally, including Usain Bolt (Jamaica), Felix Sanchez (Dominican Republic), and U.S. stars like Justin Gatlin and Marion Jones have recently shared the spotlight.
At this year's Penn Relays, a new training tool for Track and Field athletes will be making its official debut. Nike is giving SPARQ the opportunity to introduce the SPARQ Track & Field Rating to the 4,000-plus teenage athletes expected to compete at the Relays. The SPARQ Track and Field Rating is a first-ever metric designed to give athletes a complete snapshot of their overall speed, power and explosiveness. At the Penn Relays, Nike has created a unique interactive feature called the � Nike Free Park � and will be including the SPARQ Rating as part of this experience.
Along with the SPARQ testing and an up-close look at the NIKE Free footwear, there will also be a traveling museum of past Olympic athletes' shoes, uniforms and signed memorabilia.
Those interested in getting a SPARQ Track and Field Rating will be tested in
each of the four components used in the formula -- the Vertical Jump,
Standing Broad Jump, 30-meter Sprint and Over-the-back Power Ball Throw.
Once the athlete completes the tests, he or she will have the chance to get an official SPARQ Rating right at the event.
Each athlete that comes through will be able to test Nike's latest shoe innovations, the Nike Free Trainer (boys) and the Nike Runner (girls), which
emulate barefoot training to strengthen the foot muscles, for the four testing elements. NIKE has laid down field turf for warm-ups and a �sport court� where the actual SPARQ Testing will take place. More than 75 SPARQ staff and volunteers�including 45 from the Univ. of Pennsylvania �will oversee the testing. A leader board will be updated regularly featuring the top 20 SPARQ Ratings.
The SPARQ Track and Field Rating is the first ever system designed to measure the sport-specific �athleticism'' of track and field athletes,� explains Vern Gambetta, SPARQ Master Trainer and a key collaborator in the development of the new Track and Field Rating. �Explosiveness, agility and speed are critical for all track and field athletes, whether they are sprinters, distance runners, throwers or jumpers. While lots of young athletes think that they're born naturally �fast' or �slow,' the right training programs can really make a big difference in an athlete's speed and explosiveness.�
�The key value of the SPARQ Rating,� says Alberto Salazar, famed runner and now youth distance coach, �is that it gives athletes an important new tool to gauge their athleticism and gives them a benchmark to measure their progress as they work on their speed and explosiveness. As a coach, I think it is a great tool to keep athletes motivated and engaged in their training.�
The first SPARQ Rating was rolled out in football last spring. It has quickly become the standard -- used by top prep football players across the country to measure speed and explosive power. �We expect similar success as we expand into four new sports this year�Track and Field, Baseball, Basketball and Soccer,� states Ken Black, Director of Marketing for SPARQ.
�The SPARQ Rating for each sport is grounded in four or five tests which are designed to capture the key aspects of athleticism most important for success in that particular sport,� Black concludes. �These tests are weighed and combined in a proprietary formula unique to that sport. The tests are designed to be simple enough that any coach or athlete can do their own SPARQ testing and use the SPARQ Rating to assess performance and track training progress.�
For more information on SPARQ Testing, go to SparqTraining.com. Also, check out DyeStat.com next week for exclusive SPARQ Testing marks from the Penn Relays. |
