Science and Technology into Sports: The Flemish Sports Compass

Sports are increasingly shaped by science and technology. Sportspersons now routinely operate in an environment consisting of devices, data flows, laboratories, and scientists. While governments, research industries, and many scientists across the world promote the integration of science and technology into sports as a means of inspiring innovation in sports, how this integration is achieved has not been systematically investigated. To remedy this shortcoming in science and technology studies (STS) and to grasp how science, technology, and sports are mutually attuned in everyday situations, this paper examines a sociotechnical device developed by scientists in Flanders (Belgium) popularly known as the ‘sports compass’ (sportkinelab.be/sportkompas). As the sports compass is designed to detect and develop sports talent in young children through standardized physical trials, it is used in the Flemish sports field. Drawing on ethnographic methods and on preliminary interviews with sports compass developers and users (scientists, children, parents), the paper argues that the compass’s solidity as a scientific conduit for talent is disrupted by the multiple social aims it serves (e.g. sports participation, striving for excellence) and the multiple expectations it elicits. Accordingly, multiple solidarities and shifting alliances can be discerned between technology developments and uses, devices and humans, and between research institutes, schools, and sports organizations. The paper’s findings serve to open a discussion both on the meaning and viability of talent detection among children and sportspersons, and on sports and innovation policies designed to render sports more scientific and technological.