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Follow our coverage of the Olympic Games in Paris.
The Olympic Games have come a long way since the era of the stopwatch.
It is fitting, then, that at a time when the general public is finally grasping the power (and danger) of artificial intelligence (AI) through widgets like ChatGPT, the Paris Olympics are relying on AI to determine not just who wins and loses, but also the how and why of those wins and losses.
In preparation for the Olympic Games, The Athletics spoke with Alain Zobrist, CEO of Omega Timing. Omega is the official timekeeper of the Games, a role it has fulfilled countless times since 1932, and is largely responsible for every single figure of data produced during the Olympic Games.
Zobrist outlined a series of innovations that will allow viewers of NBC and other television broadcasts to experience the ups and downs of the competition like never before, whether in the pool or on the sand beneath the Eiffel Tower during the beach volleyball competition.
‘A complete biomechanical analysis’
Perhaps the most striking innovations, especially at the start of the Games when swimming is the focus, can be found in the Olympic Swimming Centre.
Omega has set up four cameras that record everything that happens in the water. The cameras and the computerized brains that control them, known as Computer Vision, have been trained to recognize and analyze certain movements. In real time, the high-tech cameras can calculate each athlete’s stroke rate and the distance they travel. They can compare that to how much distance they have traveled, how much is left, and to the seven other athletes in the race, and figure out the small differences in acceleration and deceleration at key moments in the race that can make the difference between a gold medal and fourth place.
“What we get is a complete biomechanical analysis,” Zobrist said.
Safer diving
One of the most famous images of Olympic diving is that of Greg Louganis, the American champion, hitting his head on the board during the 1988 Games in Seoul. Louganis basically got off lightly, even though he hit his head after completing two and a half somersaults.
He received four stitches and won a second gold medal on the springboard. He also won the platform gold for the second time in a row.
Still, the injuries could have been much more serious, and the sport has tried to prioritize keeping heads far away from the boards. Judges can deduct two points for a head that crosses the board at an unsafe distance. In the past, it has sometimes been a judgment call of sorts. Not in Paris, where a computerized camera measures the distance between the head and the board and lets judges know whether to deduct points.
Divers can be penalized if their heads get too close to the board. In Paris, new technology will take the decision out of the judges’ hands. (Clive Rose/Getty Images)
The ultimate (for now) photo finish
Winning a gold medal can be a life changing event. Doing it well is about the most important thing there is.
On the track, the decision can be complicated, as officials must determine whose upper body crossed the finish line first. In the past, they relied on a camera that shot 10,000 frames per second. This time, there’s a better camera that shoots 40,000 frames per second, with more pixels, so the quality will be better.
Smart bibs
The track and field event seems like a pretty old-fashioned piece of equipment. In the most important event of their careers, athletes pin a high-tech piece of paper to their bodies.
It turns out that the bib plays a pretty important role in how viewers experience a running race. Inside the bib is a credit card-sized sensor that constantly transmits data about the runner, similar to the data collected by cameras in the pool.
A series of antennas sends information to high-speed computers that continuously calculate the positions of all athletes on the track, their steps, their cadence and the direction they are going. The antennas send about 2,000 data points per second to the timing room.
This way we know who is gaining ground, who is losing ground and who is in the lead in a race with a staggered start, such as the 200 or 400 meters.
The vast beach volleyball court requires a lot of movement to cover during a match. We’ll have a much better idea of how much in Paris. (Daniel Leal/AFP via Getty Images)
Running on the beach, fast movements on the tennis court
The first thing anyone who wants to play beach volleyball notices is how huge the court is.
It’s 52 feet long and 26 feet wide, or over 52 feet long and over 25 feet wide. That’s a ridiculous amount of real estate for two people to cover.
This year we will know how ridiculous it is, because the smart cameras capture and record every movement of the athletes, calculating the distance they cover in each match, the speed of the ball and gaining insights into tactics based on data.
There will be no electronic line calling on the courts at Roland Garros. Players will have to rely on old-fashioned line judges and clay-court markings, which may have cost Alexander Zverev the men’s singles title in June. But a new system will focus heavily on the game’s two most important strokes: the serve and the return, the only two strokes that occur on every tennis point.
The cameras at Roland Garros measure the returner’s reaction time to the serve and correlate it with the quality of the return. This gives us an idea of whether the fastest reflexes and the ability to read the serve lead to high-quality returns.
More than timing
Zobrist said the general approach is to try to measure the competition without disturbing athletes. That way, they don’t have any problems convincing athletes to accept their methods.
“That’s why computer vision and AI are so useful,” he said, especially since engineers are so focused on biomechanics rather than biometrics. “It’s a different way to measure time, to measure time and explain performance.”
GO DEEPER
Beach volleyball at the 2024 Paris Olympics: U.S. teams, schedule and how to watch
(Top photo of the women’s 100 meters at the Tokyo Olympics: Ulrik Pedersen/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
