Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro, who is better know simply as Ronaldo or Cristiano Ronaldo, has had his free kicks clocked by Castrol Performance Analysis. With the use of GPS tracking systems, the research company was able to put numbers behind the most-expensive-player-in-the-world’s shot. His numbers: 31.1m of acceleration per second at the moment of impact.

How does the foot of this soccer phenom compare? The Apollo 11, which launched in July of 1969, 16 years before Ronaldo was born, accelerated at a measly 7.3m a second after its blast-off. This makes Ronaldo’s free kicks over 4 times faster than a rocket ship. Crazy!

This does highlight some interesting applications of GPS technology, which can be used to measure complex metrics that are useful in a wide array of application and situations. By being able to determine location and altitude while recording time all sorts of movement and speed metrics become available to the researcher.

While the acceleration of Ronaldo’s free kick is not the most important thing to be measuring with that level of precision, it does make the point plane that GPS tracking can be used in this way.

Source: NOTW

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