Alongside Williams Racing, MV Agusta Forward Racing Team, Prema and McLaren, many sports organisations have chosen to become Pure Air Zones, improving their athletes’ performance every single day. Let’s find out how Pure Air Zones are enhancing professional sport.
The Pandemic Started the Conversation
There is no denying that covid-19 has had a huge impact on the world. Not just in terms of cases and lockdowns but in the way people perceive air quality. Although many are aware of climate change and pollution all over the planet, not many were talking about it or knew how badly air quality affects health. The pandemic changed all that. Pure Air Zones are designed to combat poor air and as Covid cases rose around the world, organisations feared the impact of cross-contamination on their wards.
Motorsport Leads the Way
It wasn’t just hospitals that were struggling though and as masks became prevalent, numerous companies looked for a way to protect their employees with sports teams being at the forefront, looking to find a solution to protect their star athletes. From Formula 1 to competitors in the Champions League and beyond, many decided to provide athletes with comfortable, branded U-Masks. Over the last six months, many of these clubs and teams have turned their attention from masks to having a more complete air purification solution, including teams from rugby and basketball. In addition to this, solo athletes can also benefit with Pure Air Zones being installed at tennis and padel tournaments, and also in horse racing. This year’s final of Supercoppa Italiana involving Juventus and Napoli was also a Pure Air Zone. But why have sports become so enamoured with Pure Air Zone?
Why Athletes Benefit from a Pure Air Zone
One of the most significant reasons is the idea of the Pure Air Zone virtuous circle. Alongside the revolutionary air purifying bioreactor, U-Earth can provide an air quality U-Monitor that downloads the data of its environment every five minutes, allowing teams to always ensure that athletes are in the perfect environment.
Another advantage to the U-Earth offering is that the Pure Air Zone is plug-and-play. As no structural changes are necessary, teams are able to take the bioreactors with them on their travels as was seen during the recent F1 and MotoGP season teams bringing their bioreactors to each new race in the calendar.
A big reason currently is also the advent of U-Alert. Numerous sports were affected by the lockdowns in various countries last year with France even postponing Ligue 1 entirely. In the UK, the Premier League has been forced into a number of rearranged fixtures after outbreaks at Aston Villa, Fulham and Newcastle United. With another Premier League club being affected by this, it is understandable that they are due to trial the U-Alert system, which can notify whether SARS-CoV-2 has been near the bioreactor recently, allowing the team to remedy any possible outbreak before it could get worse and possibly cause further illness among players and staff as well as cancelled matches.
There is also significant research that air quality affects sporting performance with the breathing of pure air being key to improved performance. Research from 2015 suggested that higher levels of ozone and PM10 affected football players’ number of passes and pass accuracy, while a German study found that a higher level of PM 2.5 during a chess match leads to a 26.3% probability of players making an erroneous move.
The key facts don’t stop there either; a great sporting fixture relies on decisions from referees and umpires being correct. American researchers found that a 1ppm (parts per million) increase in carbon monoxide over a three-hour period caused an 11.5% increase in the propensity of Major League Baseball umpires to make incorrect calls. For every hundred decisions they made, poorer air quality led to two extra incorrect decisions than would have been made otherwise. Two may not sound like a lot but one wrong call can affect not just the outcome of the game but also key player statistics and other industries including the sports betting market.
An eco-friendly, stress-free solution
Because Pure Air Zones can be provided as part of a full service with bioreactors being cleaned every few months to ensure that they are always at their best, the Pure Air Zone certification is completely stress-free. Alongside this, because of U-Ox and the fact that each air purifying bioreactor only uses the same amount of electricity as the average light bulb, they can feature as part of your eco-friendly marketing or to help any team achieve their ESG targets.
With all of their advantages, it is clear to see why sports teams around the world have embraced Pure Air Zones. If you are interested in learning more, please click here.