BMW's partnership with the Olympics has been pretty well-documented in this space, but there just seems to be no shortage of ways for this particular team to pay dividends for everyone involved.  We here at the Center BMW blog have already talked about how the torch was tested in our Munich wind tunnel, but now ESPN has done a great feature on how BMW technology is being used to help U.S. Olympic high-jumpers fine-tune their skills.

Unlike the wind tunnel thing, which was a preexisting BMW facility just used for a different purpose, the long-jumping technology was developed by BMW specifically for the purpose of helping athletes improve themselves.

The system our engineers developed uses a 3-D stereo camera hooked up to a computer to capture the precise movements of a jump.  The jumper wears a special cap that has been programmed to track and record the long leaps, and all that technology allows the athlete to get immediate information about the velocity and angle of the jump.  That means they don't have to just guess how to alter their bodies for their next attempt; they can look at numbers and photos and immediately know exactly how to improve.

If you drive a BMW in Los Angeles, you probably had no idea that your automaker was doing so much to help American Olympic athletes.  You knew about the sponsorship most likely, but probably not this long-jumping thing.  We think it's pretty cool, and we're definitely interested to see where this partnership is headed next.