No ‘Paris Syndrome’ for Tech. The ‘Emily in Paris’ one, May be

There was an ad some years back where a cameraman is trying to capture a live shot of a high-octane track race. It’s a nail-biting dash. The fastest runner crosses the finishing line. Alas, the winner flag has already been ripped. By the cameraman. Who was running ahead of the winner. Backwards.

Technology, on the other hand, is the cameraman that has been running forwards. And, sometimes, with a good gap ahead of the sportsperson.

‘Bob the Catcher’

At this year’s Olympics in Paris, we saw many versions of this sprezzatura. After the audience oohed-and-aahed when our own pride Neeraj Chopra hit the ball out of the park, the surprise-gasps were repeated in a few minutes. This time -watching a remote-controlled car that was picking those javelins – oh so effortlessly, noiselessly and smoothly.

There were also the likes of Fastskin LZR swimsuits – reported to have been used in swimming competitions this year. Apparently, these suits used the same approach to water repellents as is used to protect satellites in space (From radiation). Their aim is to be lightweight but also to reduce friction, or drag, in the water and improve hydrodynamics.

Earlier the company shared in a media announcement that Speedo and Lamoral have collaborated and  produced an innovative fabric coating which is lightweight – “providing a feeling of weightlessness and which has its lowest water absorption and most durable water repellent yet.” The Fastskin LZR Valor 2.0 – developed in Speedo’s Aqualab – was claimed to be six times more durable water repellency driven by Lamoral’s patented water repellency technology – as the company added.

Not far away was Samsung Electronics that allowed fans to immerse themselves in the sailing competition held in the French port city of Marseille. The smartphones were installed on each boat, so that fans experienced the race as if they were alongside their favorite athletes – experiencing the elements – almost- together in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. The Galaxy smartphones were attached to each athlete’s shoulder and buoys in the water – for kitesurfing and windsurfing. As stated by the company- the challenge was to guarantee video quality and connectivity performance across various bodies of water and weather conditions, which can be really windy with huge waves or extremely hot and sunny. This was confronted by leveraging the Galaxy S24 Ultra’s Optical image stabilization (OIS) features, increasing transmission power and installing relay towers on chase boat to ensure a seamless livestream experience for viewers.

Technology was not limited to humans in the ring but the ones with the judging-eye and referee-whistle too. As per some reports, the Olympics water polo referee Frank Ohme is also an astrophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Hannover, Germany, where he hunts for signals of colliding black holes. He uses AI there sometimes and might have wanted some of it near the water too - studying splashing water waves to decide whether the ball has crossed the line into the goal.

Is this Seine all clean?

Adding the adjective ‘super’ to a shoe or a fabric can have the flip side too. Many, and well-arguably so, call the edge given by technology as a form of doping. When a shoe gives a runner some seconds of boost or when a swim-suit reduces the drag-force, they can easily get the yellow-card of ‘unfair advantage’.

Remember how at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 94 percent of all swimming gold medals went to athletes wearing the Speedo LZR Racer swimsuit. Yes, a marvel of technology as seen in this full-body suit that had been engineered to reduce drag force (a force created when water contacts the body and calls for energy to be expended by the swimmer). And how ‘super-spikes’ came into spotlight since 2016 – shoes with speciality foams and plates on soles!

We asked all this in a chat Wouter Hoogkamer, Ph.D, Assistant Professor, Director UMILL, University of Massachusetts Integrative Locomotion Lab. He has been busy with research to quantify the potential benefits of middle-distance Advanced Footwear Technology (AFT) spikes. “Our research indicates that women get a 2 per cent advantage with just better foam, while men experience less benefit from just foam and run faster after adding the plate.” He revealed.

“On the track, Nike super-spikes appeared to be ahead of the competition. At the recent Olympics in Paris, all brands had their own super-spike models and have been improving very swiftly to seemingly come close to each other.”

Wouter Hoogkamer, University of Massachusetts Integrative Locomotion Lab

Dr. Hoogkamer explains with a look from the inside. “There are two elements in this field of super-shoes- a carbon fibre plate and more springy foams. Depending on the forces applied by the athlete sometimes the combination of plate and foam works better for some than for others.  Track races beyond 800 meters run at slower speeds may find different performance results with foam, plate or combinations.”

In a study seen in the International Journal of Sports Physiology and Performance, research from St. Edward’s University and the University of Michigan showed that super spikes resulted in about a two-percent boost in running economy (the efficiency of a body in using oxygen) – which can also translate to 1-1.5 percent better running times.

But many of these advancements went through bans before a repechage. Innovations like these were not only criticized for the ‘extra’ advantage that they proffered on the athlete but also for the inequity they perpetrated. Not everyone can afford such shiny tech-wonders. And even if they buy them once, the replacement time is too fast, expensive and overwhelming.

“Biomedical technology, and mechanical engineering department have devised tools for analyzing athlete / sports persons performance, designing ergonomical clothing, analysing athletes heart and lungs function.”

Prof. Devendra Jalihal, Director, IIT Guwahati

These enhancements can turn expensive sometimes, avers Dr. Hoogkamer. “But most of these elite athletes are supported by sports brands in this regard, providing them with their products. But as we see in Kenya, training with breakthrough products can be expensive when you have limited means of renewals.”

As Dr. Hoogkamer explains it best, “If everyone had access to the same super-shoes then we would not be talking about this issue. If only a select group of athletes is allowed to use specific shoes, then it can be a worry. I foresee that, in the long-term horizon, as these products gather scale; they will get more affordable too.” He also predicts that more and more individualisation- as per race distance, and mass and strength of runners- will gain pace in the next Olympics.

Cheerleaders in Silicon: Some AI Pole-vaults

Technology – like a good coach – is best when it is the biggest catalyst for the gold, but often stays out of the limelight of the actual event. When we look back at this year’s Olympics, we can’t miss how Technology gave a winning performance in many other tracks. Specially the ones involving Cloud, latency, broadcasting and AI.

AI was used by International Olympic Committee (IOC) very specifically this time for energy management, cyber security and protection from cyber-abuse. There was an AI-powered monitoring system designed to protect athletes from online abuse – flagging abusive message for intervention. A new chat service was also given a test drive – to enable athletes for FAQs on social media guidelines, anti-doping rules, and Rule 50 regulations.

Real-time data capture of energy consumption, digital twins for better game organization, 3D models and Cloud for reconstruction and additional viewpoints in broadcasting – these were some more top runners in the tech circuit this year. The more hands-on uses were in the area of AI-based motion-capture edge that came very handy in canoe sprint, marathon, race walks, cycling road (road race and time trial), cycling mountain bike, marathon swimming, rowing, sailing and triathlon.

In the words of Thomas Bach, President, IOC, “AI is also opening up new ways for talent identification, and this project will be launched by us globally in 2025 to live up to the commitment we made that AI in sport must be accessible to everybody.”

“This summer, some events had to pause as many French attendees in the venues tracked Léon Marchand's latest swim race on their phones. This underscores the increasing trend of consuming sports both live and digitally.”

Christophe Thivet, Chief Integrator Officer for Paris 2024, Atos

Intel also participated with many new things – like an interactive, AI-powered fan activation to take spectators on a journey of becoming an Olympic athlete. As the company shared in an update, it was trained on Intel Gaudi accelerators and processors with built-in AI acceleration- tapping AI and computer vision to analyse athletic drills and match each participant’s profile to a specific Olympic sport.

AI is also being put to use to preserve the legacy of the Olympic Games, with neural object cloning set to transform video footage of artefacts in the Olympic collections into 3D digital models. Developed by Intel’s Emergent AI Lab, this area is being tested to enable the Olympic Museum to bring some of its collections into interactive digital environments, where viewers can rotate and explore pieces of Olympic history, as if they had them in their hands.

Innovators are enthusiastic and busy – no matter where they are. India is in this warm-up zone too.

Prof. Devendra Jalihal, Director, IIT Guwahati cites that biomedical technology, and mechanical engineering department have devised tools for analyzing athlete / sports persons performance, designing ergonomical clothing, analysing athletes heart and lungs function. “There is also work on posture analysis, specific materials development for sports activities are some of the sports related activities that the institute pursues.”

A view from the IT War-Room

Technology looks chic and hot in the hands and shoes of athletes but there is a lot that happens behind the curtains – to make an event of that scale come together smoothly and beautifully.

Atos team guided Voice&Data through the scope of the technology they deliver for the Games.

It is the chief integrator of all the technology needed to manage and broadcast the Olympic and Paralympic Games. It also delivers over 150 applications – some belong to the Olympic Management System (accreditations, volunteer portal), the others to the Olympic Diffusion System (results data flow, commentator information system).

An interesting but silent engine here is the TOC or Technology Operations Centre. It spans a surface of 610m², and became the control and command center for technology to supervise all 63 Olympic and Paralympic competition and non-competition venues. What’s fascinating is that after three years of remote collaboration, the Group’s 15 technology partners corralled to be finally working together on-site. The TOC was designed to coordinate 140 Venue IT Managers across all Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 operational locations.

As shared by Atos team -To be ready this summer, we have been anticipating and working with Paris 2024 for the past 4 years – which included testing applications in our lab in Madrid (the ITL), testing technologies during actual sport events, and organising two huge ‘technology rehearsals’” with Paris 2024 and all technology partners to simulate hundreds of scenarios.

As Patrick Adiba, CEO Major Events, Atos had stated "Our teams have demonstrated unparallelled dedication and passion to ensure the flawless delivery of the technology for the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games in the Group's home country. We couldn't imagine a better setting to showcase our expertise in digital transformation and our dedication to the Olympic Movement over the past 35 years.”

What’s intriguing to note is that Paris 2024 wanted the Games to be “wide open”, meaning competitions would take place in the city or in historical landmarks (Concorde, Eiffel Tower etc.). It meant that Atos had to implement IT in non-sporting venues in a record time. Also, surfing competitions took place in Tahiti, across the globe from Paris, which is unique in Olympic history. At nighttime, instead of focusing on IT maintenance activities like it usually did, Atos had to monitor and manage competitions. To achieve that, it tested even more and adapted our schedule and resources.

Also, via the business line Eviden, Atos delivered cybersecurity services to the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024, to protect the IT of the organization, Olympic venues, and all staff (employees and volunteers).

The Data Dressage

As to data, there was a big improvement in its performance and acrobatic flair this year.

For instance, the Atos TOC entailed support to the 60 Venue Results Managers from the TOC - responsible for correctly gathering and publishing performance data and statistics on the Olympic Diffusion System (ODS).

Atos had shared that it will announce data within a timeframe of 0.35 seconds, before it is broadcast on the competition’s websites and other media, available for viewing from all devices including desktops, smartphones and tablets. Also, the Commentator Information System (CIS) was armed to provide sports journalists with data, whether live on-venue from Paris or off-venue in their home country.

Remarkably, ‘Test Events’ conducted for 18 sports at 11 competition venues helped the TOC and CTOC teams to assess Atos’ systems and applications in real time – following tests held from the ITL.

Today, sports fans can interact with favorite sports and athletes in unprecedented ways due to extensive data collection, on-screen simulations, and video usage. The data volume processed by the systems has consistently risen over the last decades, with one major objective – enhance the fan experience. – emphasized Atos.

Paris was also the ground for low-latency streaming. Paris 2024 was anointed as the first edition of the Olympic Games to use Intel Xeon processors for showcasing an end-to-end 8K livestreaming experience with low-latency, high-definition livestreaming over the internet. Intel had stated that broadcast servers powered by the latest Intel Xeon Scalable processors with Intel AI Deep Learning Boost technology will take just milliseconds to encode and compress the live signal produced by Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) in 8K resolution.

Samsung had also explained in a note that it implemented optimised software and technology to support filming and transmitting this first-of-its-kind footage in collaboration with the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Olympic Broadcasting Services (OBS) and other Olympic partners.

The Torch Goes On

Technology may be working on the background but it is started getting noticed with a lot of cheers and viral interest in mega sports events now. Sometimes it finds lost caps, sometimes it corrals javelins and while it does that, its own endurance and excellence keep breaking their own records.

It is, understandably then, fascinating to read statements like this one from Ilario Corna, CTO, IOC, “We are taking a measured approach for now, to test and evaluate how AI can be used to enhance the Olympic Games and have them future-ready.”

As Christophe Thivet, Chief Integration Officer for the Olympic and Paralympic Games Paris 2024 told us best – “Going forward, I think that technology will continue to enhance the fan experience by enabling more information to be shared real time, offering more simulations for performance comparison; and potentially allowing fans to match up against real athletes through fantasy sports games.”

Thankfully, when you are running with technology, there is no ‘finish line’. Only the next lap.