Insightly_Ep15
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Jordan Walker: [00:00:00] Welcome back!

Alyssa McGinn: Everyone it's Friday

Jordan Walker: woo!

Alyssa McGinn: Maybe not for you guys listening to this. Yeah, it's not Friday, but for us

Jordan Walker: At this point in time, it is Friday, and it is the end of August, which means that

Alyssa McGinn: The best season is upon us.

Jordan Walker: Oh, you're a fall gal, are you? Yeah, I, you know, I like fall. I'm also a spring girl, but my birthday's in the spring, so I might be a little biased.

Alyssa McGinn: I just feel like the ~like ~cool weather is [00:01:00] nicer in the fall ~You More, ~I'm a huge football fan. That's also why. And, Oktoberfest.

Jordan Walker: Oh, yes.

Alyssa McGinn: And, I mean, just like the best things happen in the fall, so.

Jordan Walker: Well, you know what's been going on lately? That also just makes me think of like end of summer and fall.

The Olympics.

Alyssa McGinn: The Olympics.

Jordan Walker: So. At this point in time, the Olympics just ended a couple weeks ago, but as of this week, the Paralympics got kicked off and so we're all back into it again, you know, Team USA, like I'm all

Alyssa McGinn: are they in the same place?

Jordan Walker: yeah, so the Paralympics is happening in Paris, they had their ceremony on Wednesday night. Last night I was really getting into the rugby competition, wheelchair rugby. It is intense. ~Yeah. ~It was so much fun to watch. ~Yeah. ~So if, depending on when you listen to this, like I think that you could go back and stream some of the sports, but definitely go back and watch like the, all of these athletes are tremendous, like [00:02:00] any who, but that is actually what I want to talk about today.

So as we've been getting into the Olympics, I started thinking

how,

How, is data used in the Olympics? Which kind of led me down a couple of different rabbit holes that I wanted to bring up to you today.

Alyssa McGinn: I'm ready for it.

Jordan Walker: So the first thing that I started uncovering is just how data is being utilized for Olympic athlete training.

And so one of the Olympic training facilities is in Colorado Springs. And I read an article from Scientific American that was detailing how this facility uses data to help simulate conditions for athletes, so here's an example. One, a lot of data is utilized for athlete monitoring. So of course, like, and we see this in a lot of professional sports where athletes are monitored for their performance, but also for like their recovery time.

And that's really important, [00:03:00] especially if like you're, you know, a swimmer, a sprinter, like those are pretty intense, you know, two minute, you know, excursions that you're doing and your body needs time to like recover before you go back after it again. Oh gosh, getting just like knocked

knocked down and like thrown across a field.

Yeah. ~So one of the things that I jotted down was that ~The way that data is being used is not just to monitor ~like from ~like, you know, we all have our watches and our Fitbits and whatnot now, but it's also utilizing AI to provide results within 30 seconds to tell you how you can immediately optimize.

Like maybe it's your, you need to optimize ~like ~your posture. Or maybe it's like if you're a sprinter, like lifting your foot in just a way so that you ~like ~kick off faster from the block. ~Yeah, ~and so it's being utilized to help you get that extra fraction of human performance that you might need to win.

And so if you think about in the Olympics when Noah Lyles won the 100 by like [00:04:00] milliseconds, that right there, like within his training, They are monitoring performance that way so that he can do these incremental shifts to get that extra little boost right when you need it.

Alyssa McGinn: So ~how are they, ~how are they gathering that data?

Jordan Walker: So they do have ~like ~the typical watches and stuff that we all have, like a lot of the software is very similar to what you can get at a Best Buy, you know, like have your Garmin watch or something like that. But what they're doing is ~they're also ~they're also monitoring the environment that you're in.

So they're taking what does the wind condition look like right now? What is ~like ~the altitude level right now? And all of those kind of things. ~Thanks. ~They're bringing all of these data points in to one spot and letting artificial intelligence then say, Okay, the drag was this, your aerodynamics are that, this is what needs to improve.

Alyssa McGinn: Wow.

Jordan Walker: I

Alyssa McGinn: That's crazy.

Jordan Walker: know.

Alyssa McGinn: ~So they'll, will they say like, okay, the next Olympics is in LA? Right?~

So like, will they start to gather the [00:05:00] environmental data?

Jordan Walker: I am so glad you asked because,

Alyssa McGinn: plan this. ~I'm genuinely~

Jordan Walker: So the other way that they're using data and artificial intelligence in the Colorado Springs facility is for conditioning. The example that they gave so they have a high altitude training center.

That you're able to adjust the humidity, the temperature, and the altitude so that you can compete like you are in that place.

~So like,~

~think about you're in Colorado Springs, like one of the, you know, most mountainous areas that we have here in the United States. ~You're preparing for Beijing four years ago, very different climate, very different altitude.

They were able to adjust the whole space that you're competing in. Doesn't matter if you're a sprinter, a tennis player, a swimmer, like you can get conditioned. So yeah, like now they're going to be preparing for LA. They're going to adjust that. And then along with that athlete monitoring of their performance, they can start making those incremental shifts.

So then when they get there, they can literally use their, you know, couple of days of training time before the event. to just like hone in on what [00:06:00] they need.

Alyssa McGinn: Is this new? Like, for this Olympics?

Jordan Walker: So the, this article, at least from the high altitude training center, they referenced Beijing training. So, I mean, it's been around at least ~since, you know, ~since that Olympics four years ago.

I'm not quite sure how long it is, but knowing how quickly the data and artificial intelligence has really evolved over the last, ~like, ~Five years? ~I'm, ~I'm sure there have been a lot of improvements over that. ~Okay, so that was the first little rabbit hole. ~As I was going down that rabbit hole, though, I ended up discovering something super cool.

Did you know that the International Olympics Committee, or the IOC, whatever it's called, they have an AI agenda for the Olympics?

Alyssa McGinn: No. Yeah. Wow.

Jordan Walker: a whole section on their website about it. They've got a video, they've got FAQs, you can read the whole policy.

Alyssa McGinn: they're assuming that it could give some sort of Unfair competitive advantages?

Jordan Walker: So it has a lot of different facets to it. It's not, so the latest version [00:07:00] that came out is a five year plan 2020. In 2020, if you'll remember, the Olympics got delayed until 2021 because of COVID. And even then, no audiences could show up other than the athletes, so that was like one of the, that was the first Olympics where we pretty much had to figure out how do we get fans engaged digitally.

So, that is when they really started thinking about, like, how do we use AI to also bring a fan experience through, like, a TV screen or something. ~So, it's five year plan, launch in 2020. ~It's developed in partnership with what's called the AI Working Group, which is basically like a consortium of AI professionals in academia, athletics, technology companies, that sort of thing from around the globe. And the reason, there's a few reasons why they have it. One is what you just mentioned. Because we just talked about how data and AI is being utilized in athletic training. They're keeping an eye on that to understand how can [00:08:00] that maybe give you an unfair advantage over maybe some other countries and players that don't have those opportunities to

Alyssa McGinn: like a mess waiting to happen.

Jordan Walker: So far, it's been fine. But then, ~they're also, ~the reason why they have an AI agenda is for a few reasons, like, one, using AI to optimize event operations. So thinking transportation, especially when we're gonna be in we're LA in 2028, like,

Better start optimizing that 405 right now, right? So using it to, you know, help with transportation logistics, workforce training, like it takes so many people to put on this event.

So like utilizing AI to help with like scenario training, because like you don't get a trial for this unless you've worked at one of the like world games or something leading up to this. So a lot of these people are coming in from like maybe their, You know, smaller athletic experience to then, you know, go to the largest event [00:09:00] ever.

Ticket sales and logistics are a part of that, how to make that easier for people.

Alyssa McGinn: people. And we all know. That Ticketmaster has had its fair share of problems.

Jordan Walker: Yes.

Alyssa McGinn: And I don't know if you heard this, but Oasis, that sang Wonderwall, like announced that they're getting back together. And they were like, Ticketmaster is going to

crumble. I'm like, that's especially with the Olympics being in the US, like that's a big thing to consider.

Jordan Walker: Yeah, and again like with it being in LA, which is not exactly a easy City to like get around with like public transportation and things like that ~even so ~It'll be interesting how they use AI for that. ~Like, ~I will now be looking at the LA Olympics, I think, a little bit differently in four years to see how that

Alyssa McGinn: I wonder if ~they're, are ~they're going to build like models for ~like ~forecasting and predictive analytics from like historical Olympic data?

Jordan Walker: I would think, especially with it being utilized in [00:10:00] Paris currently, like they would at least be able to have that as an example for what could be because, I mean, Paris has had so many sold out events and whatnot, and the Paralympics are even selling out events, which is awesome that it's getting the attention that it deserves this time around.

And refereeing and judging is another way that we're seeing. AI come in. ~And if, ~if anyone watched the Olympics one way that this comes into play are things like ~the what is it called? ~the electric line calling in tennis where, you know, being able to absolutely know if the ball was in or out of bounds.

They're using it in gymnastics to like, I mean, when you're watching like Simone Biles, you know, do any of those moves, when they're rattling off, she just did six moves in one. I'm like, I just saw one big blur, you know, I just saw

Alyssa McGinn: Yeah,

Jordan Walker: That was it. So now they're being, they're able to actually use artificial intelligence to see all of the different like rotations and Especially with an athlete [00:11:00] like Simone, who has to get judged on a much higher level because of her, because she's at a higher level, they have to use it to actualize her scores so that it is more of an even playing field for like, okay, yeah, she might be busting out all of these moves, but is she hitting the skills as well as others are hitting the skills,

Alyssa McGinn: And they can't see that ~just ~with the human eye.

Jordan Walker: Yeah, I mean, you could have like ten different people, you know, looking at it, but when it becomes like subjective on that line, so it will help with like refereeing and judging, and then I mentioned this a second ago, but really trying to figure out ways to enhance that spectator experience, and so, I noticed this year I've seen a lot more like, graphic representations of moves that have been performed or to be able to see like rather than just watching the replay of the swimmers let's say they're doing more of these like animated to show you how [00:12:00] like The water is moving and how they're like getting through so it's giving you a different perspective than just that You know 30 seconds of play time that you just witnessed which is I think turning us into even more super fans Than we were before.

Alyssa McGinn: Which, I'm assuming that even though people can go to the Olympics, there'll be so many people consuming it digitally, that, especially with it being in America, 2028, it's like, I probably won't go to the

Jordan Walker: no, I'm not gonna try,

Alyssa McGinn: right, but like, and there's gonna be so many people around the world who are gonna consume it digitally, and I'm assuming that's, ~with everything, like, that's gonna be ~the unlock, right, is like, how can they make this the thing to watch and experience and people are talking about.

Jordan Walker: Yeah. And I would assume a lot ~of this a few ~of the articles that I read also referenced how this is not just being used in the Olympics, ~but like the World Cup is starting to, I don't know if it officially has its own AI agenda, I haven't looked into it, ~but the World Cup has been utilizing, you know, ~like ~artificial intelligence to help with ~like ~judging and refereeing and [00:13:00] things we see it happening at the World Games as well.

I would assume that, you know, the NFL here in the States, like, if we ha I haven't done I quit going down my rabbit hole at this point, but now I'm just, ~like, ~super interested in seeing, ~like, ~how is this evolving in the sports world, ~and ~for ~the ~better or for worse, ~you know?~

Alyssa McGinn: in seeing Olympics does it, when is it going to be a baseline for

Jordan Walker: Yeah.

Alyssa McGinn: just what people come to expect. Especially for like, judging and refereeing even calls in the NFL, when it's like

That could ruin a game. It's like based on a human making that decision.

Jordan Walker: But at the same time, isn't that what ~kind of ~makes it

it fun?

So, ~I don't know. ~I'm curious to see how this, like,

enhances or takes away from some of the fun. rivalry that

Alyssa McGinn: You can't boo AI. ~You can boo the refs, but~

Jordan Walker: Yeah, I would

Alyssa McGinn: suck

Jordan Walker: ~a ref.~

Okay. So,

that is our Olympics rabbit hole. ~tangent for today about how data analytics and AI is being utilized in sports and ~I'm curious if anybody you know has [00:14:00] a thought or if you've noticed how data is being utilized in some fun areas like sports that you would like us to dig into.

One, we love to do that and we'd love to hear what your ideas are so email us at hello at insightly podcast dot com

Alyssa McGinn: Catch ya later!