Laetitia Adam

I am a master’s student in Applied Geoinformatics with a B.Sc. in Urban Studies and a passion for city planning and mobility.

A 3D representation of the UCI XCO of Nockstein Trophy 2026

In recent years, the Union Mountain Bike Club Koppl has established a mountain bike competence centre at the foot of the Nockstein for training in Cross‑Country Olympic mountain biking (XCO) (Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) 2024). This area is used for Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) C1‑level races as part of the Nockstein Trophy. Modern mountain bike (MTB) racing increasingly relies on digital media to communicate course characteristics to athletes, teams, officials, and spectators.

Building on these concepts, this work focuses on the digital racetrack explanation for the UCI C1 XCO racetrack at Nockstein Trophy in Salzburg, Austria. The objective is to produce a reproducible workflow of how to combine diverse geospatial and multimedia datasets into a digital racetrack visualization. The outcome is a short explanatory video that integrates slope analysis, profile graph and 3D-animated fly-over from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into video footage of riders on technical sections. The purpose  of the video is to convey track difficulty and racecourse dynamics to support spatial familiarity with the racetrack for athletes and spectators. After the 3D-animated fly-over of the racetrack is created with the proprietary software ArcGISPro, the research question is placed whether a similar result can be achieved by the open-source software QGIS. The 3D-animated fly-over created in GIS will be augmented with video footage and pop-ups in the open-source editing software DaVinciResolve. The final goal is to create an open-source based digital representation of the racetrack combining GIS data and video clips in an informative and entertaining manner.



Current research focuses on digital representation of athletes’ movements and biomechanics. The “State of the art of sports data visualization” published by Perin et al. (2018) summarizes that so far three types sports data are visualized: 1) box score data containing statistical summaries of a sport event 2) tracking data in-game actions and trajectories 3) meta-data about the sport and its participants. Digital visualization of the surrounding environment in outdoor sports is not included. When visualizing MTB racetracks, the purpose is to allow spatial familiarisation before the competition. Therefore, the characteristics of the physical surroundings are the subject of visualization. The concept of spatial familiarity is formed by Gale et al. (1990). Familiarity describes the close acquaintance with something (ibid.). Gale et al. (1990) criticise the lacking use of “spatial familiarity” in geo-related domains to express the familiarity with the surrounding environment. For this project the concept shall be applied: In outdoor sports, where athletes interact with the environment, spatial familiarity influences the athlete´s awareness of the spatial surroundings before the actual competition.

Only few approaches take a terrain analysis and the surrounding environment into account: At Mercedes-Benz UCI MTB World Cup in 2022 (Red Bull Media House GmbH 2022) a video of the racetrack demonstrates the terrain as well as single obstacles through a combination of an animated fly-over, maps, video, and commentary. The project “AlpineSense – Master Every Slope” (Politecnico di Torino 2026) was created in the context of the Winter Olympics 2026. It combines Lidar data, biomechanical data and environmental information of ski slopes in one platform The platform serves to visualize the slope, improve athletes´performance and increase safety (ibid.). Both projects focus on publishing the outcome rather than the creation process. A publication analysing the conceptual differences of 2D and 3D visualization in the context of hiking route planning has been published by Bleisch and Dykes (2008). The authors conclude that 3D maps are more intuitive and understandable for getting an overview (ibid.). However, 3D visualizations are only seen as complementary information since 2D maps are considered more useful for extracting detailed route characteristics (ibid.).

Building on these concepts, this work focuses on the digital racetrack explanation for the UCI C1 XCO racetrack at Nockstein Trophy in Salzburg, Austria. The objective is to produce a reproducible workflow of how to combine diverse geospatial and multimedia datasets into a digital racetrack visualization. The outcome is a short explanatory video that integrates slope analysis, profile graph and 3D-animated fly-over from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) into video footage of riders on technical sections. The purpose  of the video is to convey track difficulty and racecourse dynamics to support spatial familiarity with the racetrack for athletes and spectators. After the 3D-animated fly-over of the racetrack is created with the proprietary software ArcGISPro, the research question is placed whether a similar result can be achieved by the open-source software QGIS. The 3D-animated fly-over created in GIS will be augmented with video footage and pop-ups in the open-source editing software DaVinciResolve. The final goal is to create an open-source based digital representation of the racetrack combining GIS data and video clips in an informative and entertaining manner.

References

Bleisch, S. & J. Dykes (2008), Using Web-Based 3-D Visualization for Planning Hikes Virtually: An Evaluation, p. 353-365.

Gale, N., R. G. Golledge, W. C. Halperin & H. Couclelis (1990), EXPLORING SPATIAL FAMILIARITY. The Professional Geographer Nr. 42(3), p. 299-313, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0033-0124.1990.00299.x.

Perin, C., R. Vuillemot, C. Stolper, J. Stasko, J. Wood & S. Carpendale (2018), State of the Art of Sports Data Visualization. Computer Graphics Forum Nr. 37, 10.1111/cgf.13447.

Politecnico di Torino (2026), AlpineSense: the 3D mountain revolutionizing alpine skiing at the Milan Cortina 2026 Games.

Red Bull Media House GmbH (2022), Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup.

Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) (2024), UCI Cycling Regulations. Part IV: Mountain Bike. 6711https://www.uci.org/regulations/3MyLDDrwJCJJ0BGGOFzOat#part-iv-mountain-bike