Dr. Arrieta brought sports vision to the World Rally Championship
WOSS was at the WRC with a talk on what rally demands of the visual system: dynamic acuity, peripheral field, reaction speed and eye protection.
The president and founder of the World Ophthalmology Sport Society, Dr. José Antonio Arrieta, presented “High Performance Vision in Rally” to the audience of the World Rally Championship.
The underlying argument is the one the society has made since its founding: the classic eye exam — a static chart, five metres away, under consulting-room light — does not describe what happens to an athlete's eye in competition. In rally, the useful image lasts milliseconds, light changes without warning, and between seeing and acting there is an interval that can be measured and trained.
The talk covered four axes: dynamic visual acuity, peripheral vision and spatial awareness, visual reaction speed, and adverse conditions and eye protection. That last one has stopped being a footnote: in high-speed sport, protecting the eye is part of the safety equipment.
Those who attended can review the material at wossociety.com/wrc, the page gathering the themes of the talk and the ways to reach the society.