Screen Archery, Soccer… All New Sports Technologies

A participant took aim at the target with a bow. The place where he was standing while seriously shooting an arrow was not an actual archery range, but a virtual space. Even in a virtual archery range, he was able to experience the wind speed and direction, as well as the shoot-off technology that measures down to 0.001mm. The participant said, "I shot the arrow nervously as if I were a national Olympic representative."

The virtual archery range was the digital archery product 'TargetX' made by Sponier, a subsidiary of archery equipment developer Pybix. In addition to the long-line TargetX, people also visited the Dragon 5 smart target shooting experience where they could enjoy laser shooting. The online system equipped with a microcomputer and a high-speed camera is connected to a cloud server, so that even ordinary people can easily experience shooting. It is a sport that is difficult to access in daily life, but virtual reality (VR) and new information technology (IT) have narrowed the distance between people.

The '2025 Seoul International Sports Leisure Industry Expo (SPOEX)', where you can experience not only various new technologies but also the future of the domestic sports industry, will be held for four days from the 27th at COEX in Gangnam-gu, Seoul. SPOEX, which was first held at Olympic Park in 2001, is where you can experience everything about the sports industry in one place. This year, 319 sports-related companies, including health, fitness, and sportswear, participated and opened 1,720 booths. At the opening ceremony, Yoon Jin-sik, Chairman of the Korea International Trade Association, Ha Hyung-joo, Chairman of the Korea Sports Promotion Foundation, and Jang Mi-ran, Second Vice Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, attended and toured the site.

The place that caught the most attention from visitors on the first day was the 'SPO-TECH Special Exhibition Hall' that combined sports and cutting-edge technology. In particular, the booths of 14 promising domestic sports companies that participated in CES 2025, the world's largest home appliance and IT exhibition held in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA in January, and won awards, were crowded with visitors to showcase the latest sports technology and innovative products.

The experiential content solution X-RUNNER is a platform based on extended reality (XR) technology that allows users to enjoy sports content while moving freely in a virtual space without wearing goggles or glasses. It won two innovation awards at this year's CES, in the Metaverse category and the Content & Entertainment category.

"As people use computers and smartphones, their opportunities to exercise have decreased. In the U.S., people have shown great interest in the X-Runner platform, thinking that it is a solution that will solve social problems," said Jeong Hae-hyun, CEO of Newzac, the developer of X-Runner. "We will also expand opportunities to experience it in Korea through shopping malls and other places."

Also, companies participating in CES 2025 attracted a lot of attention by introducing Medistep, which uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology to analyze a person's walking posture and suggest the correct way to walk; AI Ecocare, which uses AI technology to enable simpler and faster cardiac ultrasound examinations; and a smart golf ball that combines cloud technology and smart sensors to manage putting data during golf putting practice.

The indoor bicycle, which won the CES Innovation Award last year, also attracted people’s attention because it boasted the advantage of being able to experience the same realistic feeling as riding outdoors and fitness services based on driving information. Other new technologies that attracted attention were solutions that provide customized exercise prescriptions based on simple health information and physical examinations, and screen climbing based on augmented reality (AR).

A virtual reality experience space studio was created in the special planning hall for professional sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball, and golf. Chairman Ha Hyeong-ju received a lot of applause when he successfully scored a virtual reality penalty kick in the soccer experience studio.

The professional sports special planning hall also holds daily lessons by current and former professional golf, soccer, and baseball players. On this day, former professional baseball player Jung Keun-woo gave a one-point lesson, and on the 28th, 'golf queen' Park In-bee will give lessons, and on the 29th, Kim Kyung-tae, who has won 20 professional golf games, and former national soccer player Cho Won-hee will give lessons.

In addition, there will be an export consultation meeting where 30 overseas purchasing companies will be invited to meet with 120 domestic sports companies, and an investment matching consultation meeting between 15 sports investment companies and 40 domestic sports companies. Chairman Ha said, “I hope this will be an opportunity for domestic and overseas sports companies to interact and for the public to experience sports more closely,” and added, “The biggest goal is to strengthen the competitiveness of the sports industry and increase public interest in sports.”

[Reporter Kim Ji-han]