The Sport Intelligence team supports other departments in UK Sport and the English Institute of Sport (EIS) and the Olympic teams in their use of data. They aim to optimise athlete performance using data, ensuring data is measured accurately, stored appropriately and safely, and used effectively. They focus on working with the teams and departments to help them develop the tools and required skills.
The research partnership between the Sports Engineering Research Group (SERG) and EIS Sport Intelligence allows Sport Intelligence to use our expertise in producing bespoke data capture software and data visualisation tools.
The challenges
A typical challenge is to replace or fix a data flow that is erroneous and inefficient. Challenges include:
- Useful data may be being collected on paper and then either require an inefficient transfer into a data system or not be stored, reducing its usefulness.
- Data being collected using multiple measurement systems and residing in separate and unlinked databases.
- Longitudinal analysis of data is not possible because the current data storage is not suitable.
- A sport is not able to visualise data in a way that can support athletes and team support staff.
The method
SERG and Sport Intelligence work closely with the data users within the sport to design the solution. Any software is designed with the potential users to fit the data capture environments. Databases are designed to store and synchronise data across the sport and incorporate the ability to import data from 3rd party systems.
Data visualisation options are explored with a common solution being Power BI. SERG are able to provide customised visualisations in Power BI and both SERG and Sport Intelligence work with the data user in the sport to ensure they have data analysis skills, including Power BI expertise, to solve their data analysis and visualisation problems.
The impact
The partnership has carried out 10 projects across 7 different sports with major systems being built for British Swimming, GB Rowing, British Sailing, GB Hockey, Boccia and the strength and conditioning department. This is the first Olympic cycle of the partnership and these sports have high hopes of medal success at the Tokyo Olympics.
