In 2009, Usain Bolt set a world record for the 100 meter race, clocking in at 9.58 seconds. For viewers tuning in at home, his record might have been undetectable. After all, we’re talking fractions of a second between previous records and fellow racers.
But imagine if Bolt’s biomechanics had been analyzed in real time by experts in related fields who could have deciphered the data for at-home viewers. Perhaps fans might’ve been able to better wrap their heads around the spectacular feat of running at 27.8 miles per hour. Perhaps historical data might have also been applied to show how Bolt pulled off the speediest 100-meter run in history.
At the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Intel and Alibaba will attempt to do just that. The two companies are partnering on an initiative to provide real-time biomechanical analyses by 3D-mapping athletes in five track and field sports, including sprinting and the high jump.
They’re attempting to provide athletes with new training data and provide fans insight into how world class athletes perform and compare against one another. The data will be used to enhance the Olympic Broadcasting Services’ event coverage, as part of Alibaba’s partnership with the OBS to digitally transform its operations and run broadcasts entirely through the cloud in Tokyo and beyond. Experts will be able to comment on athletes’ biomechanics, while real-time data will be compiled for highlights.
At the heart of this initiative is Intel technology. Intel, through a partnership with a company called Wrnch that claims to use artificial intelligence to “digitize human motion and behavior from video,” will use multiple standard video cameras to detect motion and activity. The experience will be frictionless, capturing biomechanical data without requiring intrusive wearables, smart garments, or sensors.
The 3D athlete tracking technology will be powered by computer vision and deep learning AI algorithms from the Intel side that will generate a “3D mesh” for each athlete. Advanced modeling techniques and other AI algorithms will be applied to analyze the biomechanics of an athlete’s movements.
Coaches, trainers and other experts will be able to extract real-time biomechanical data during training or competition. Initially, this will just be used to enhance the Tokyo 2020 broadcast. But executives imagine a future in which these insights might be used to enhance athletic performance, though the technology isn’t yet as accurate as existing biomechanical tools that leverage sensors. Instead, the Intel and Alibaba partnership for the Tokyo Olympics will focus on rapidly extracting data for live streams and broadcasts in an effort to enhance the viewing experience.
“We can get more engagement for the audience by bringing in experts to actually talk through that data,” said Naveen Rao, Intel’s vice president and general manager of Intel’s AI Products Group. “As you can imagine, someone can actually use real models of what just happened to discuss why someone can do something and this person can’t. That’s a very high level of engagement. A great [example] I always use is ‘Why is Usain Bolt so fast?’ That’s a question you see on the internet a billion times. Why is he so fast? Why can he do something that others could never do for the history of the Olympics in a sport, frankly, every child does: running. That question we can now start answering with more and more data and actually use analytics techniques combined with expertise to explain it. As opposed to ‘Oh, he has really long legs.’ OK, that’s good but why does that help? How does it help? And start kind of getting to the next level of those questions.”
Alibaba and Intel’s partnership marks both companies’ latest investments to enhance the Olympic experience for fans. Intel has long focused on creating immersive storytelling experiences via technology, and led this initiative at PyeongChang 2018 with the largest-scale virtual reality event in history and the first live virtual reality broadcast of the Winter Games.
Intel used roughly two dozen 180-degree cameras that it built in-house across 18 live events over the two-and-a-half week event. It shot 30 events in total—another 12 with 360-degree cameras—to create a mix of VR live streams and video-on-demand content.
In addition to its OBS cloud deal, Alibaba and the the International Olympic Committee announced in December that they were launching the first-ever online Olympic store on Alibaba’s Tmall e-commerce platform, targeted at Chinese fans.
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