Wbang, bang, bang – the drums of the handball fans roar through the hall in Wetzlar. While Emil Mellegard catches the ball in the green HSG jersey, he sees the gap in the defense of Füchse Berlin out of the corner of his eye. Mellegard takes a run-up – left, right, left – pushes himself off the blue ground and jumps past his opponent into the nine-meter space. Frank Leibmann from the Handball Bundesliga (HBL) watches the attack from a platform above the stands. A laptop is on the table in front of him. Green and black dots whiz across a handball field on the screen. Mellegard is one of them.
Behind the dot is a complex set of data: How fast he runs, how high he jumps, how hard he throws, how long he stays in the air – every action of Mellegard is recorded immediately. A white sensor is stuck between his shoulder blades in a vest under his jersey; about the size of a postage stamp, weighing 14 grams. It registers the movements and position of its wearer and sends them to a dozen receivers, which look like wireless LAN routers, hidden in the hall’s ceiling construction or on the advertising boards at the edge of the field. A sensor is also hidden inside the ball, which constantly collects data and transmits it wirelessly every millisecond.
