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Not much can marry British royalty to competitive football and heavyweight boxing, but Cristiano Ronaldo provided the missing link on Tuesday while training with his Portugal teammates.  

Manchester United ace Ronaldo wore the distinctive Ōura ring - an unusual Finnish fitness device designed to track sleep, heart rate and brain function - as he exercised at Lisbon's Cidade do Futebol. 

The fitness fanatic, 37, appeared to monitoring himself with the accessory while training ahead of Portugal's must-win World Cup qualifier against Turkey on March 24.   

Main man: Not much can marry British royalty to competitive football and boxing, but Cristiano Ronaldo provided the missing link on Tuesday while training with his Portugal teammates

The unusual accessory was first worn by Prince Harry during his trip to Australia with Duchess Of Sussex Meghan Markle in 2018. 

Harry, 37, favoured Ōura's state-of-the-art titanium sleep and activity tracker, described online as 'the world's most advanced wearable technology'. 

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More recently former boxing heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua wore a similar ring from the same brand during an appearance at UFC Fight Night on Saturday evening. 

The London based fighter, 32, inadvertently prompted speculation that he had secretly married after wearing the ring on his wedding finger while posing alongside Dana White, Eddie Hearn, Derek Chisora and Frazer Clarke at the event.    

Curious: The Manchester United ace wore the distinctive Ōura ring - an unusual Finnish fitness device designed to track sleep, heart rate and brain function

OURA: A WEARABLE DEVICE THAT CONSTANTLY TAKES YOUR TEMPERATURE 

The Oura ring costs £2225 ($299) and is made by Finnish health-tech startup Oura Health - founded in 2013.

It is a smart ring designed to track sleep and physical activities. 

Oura automatically detects when a wearer is sleeping or moving.

It measures heart rate, respiration rate, body temperature and movement. 

This data is shown on an accompanying app so people can identify patterns between their sleep quality and daily activities.

Scientists have studied this data in the hope of using it to detect early onset of diseases and viruses such as Covid-19. 

Fitness first: Ronaldo appeared tov be tracking his heart rate while preparing for Portugal's World Cup qualifier against Turkey

Designed to track sleep and physical activities, the wearable electronic device works by taking constant readings of body temperature, heart rate and movement and feeds back to a smartphone app that allows the wearer to see the results. 

The ring, which comes in four different colours - silver, black, stealth and gold - is available for $299 (£225).

In 2020 the National Basketball Association shared plans to reopen the league during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, including asking players to wear smart rings that monitor symptoms of the virus. 

The league shared its plan with players, coaches, and other staff in a 100-page memo titled 'Life Inside the Bubble,' which included having players wear the Ōura Ring.  

Royal seal of approval: The unusual accessory was first worn by Prince Harry during his trip to Australia with Duchess Of Sussex Meghan Markle in 2018

Striking: The Duke of Sussex favoured Ōura's state-of-the-art titanium sleep and activity tracker, described online as 'the world's most advanced wearable technology'

The ring was initially designed as a commercial device for people interested in monitoring their sleep quality, with access to biometric data collected collected overnight made accessible through a smartphone app.

In March 2020, Oura announced it would test its rings as a COVID-19 screening tool with healthcare workers in San Francisco, and in April, the company announced a nationwide testing program in partnership with West Virginia University Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute.

Early results from the testing were promising, showing it can detect COVID-19 symptoms up to three days before symptoms appear with a 90% accuracy rating.

There it is: More recently former boxing heavyweight champion Anthony Joshua wore a similar ring from the same brand during an appearance at UFC Fight Night on Saturday evening

Accessory: Joshua wore the ring on his wedding finger while posing alongside Dana White , Eddie Hearn, Derek Chisora and Frazer Clarke at the event

Experts from the University of California and MIT Lincoln Lab studied data on 50 people who owned sensor rings and had had Covid-19 before the study.

This was the first study to publish data from a project called TeamPredict - a study of more than 65,000 people wearing the Oura ring made by a Finnish startup that records temperature, heart rate, respiratory rate and levels of activity.

They found that temperature data from the ring could reliably be used to detect the early onset of fever - a leading symptom of Covid-19 and the flu. 

State of the art: Designed to track sleep and physical activities, the electronic device works by taking readings of body temperature, heart rate and movement and feeds back to an app

Study author, Benjamin Smarr and colleagues, found fever onset happened before a subject reported any symptoms and in those who never reported symptoms.

'It supports the hypothesis that some fever-like events may go unreported or unnoticed without being truly asymptomatic,' the researchers wrote.

'Wearables may contribute to identifying rates of asymptomatic [illness] as opposed to unreported illness, [which is] of special importance in the COVID-19 pandemic.

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