AI taking risk and doubt out of training

Artificial intelligence is partially behind Chinese athletes' excellent performance at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics so far, showcasing the big potential of AI in the sports sector, experts said.

After Xu Mengtao won gold in the women's freestyle skiing aerials at the Games on Monday, an AI scoring system used in her training has been gaining growing attention.

The system is developed by Chinese AI company Xiaoice to help boost the training efficiency for freestyle skiing aerials. The Beijing-based company said it has innovated a snow sports analysis model to provide training scores and analysis for athletes' motion trajectories and angles.

Every time an athlete jumps, the system-Xiaoice-International Athletic Scoring System or X-IASS-will make a professional judgment, which is highly consistent with international refereeing scoring standards, and quantifies the whole process of the three stages of athletes' takeoffs, midair moves and landings to judge their scores.

According to Xiaoice, because some moves in freestyle skiing aerials are risky, daily training maneuvers of athletes are limited.

Li Di, CEO of Xiaoice, said the analysis of multidimensional indicators such as trajectory, body posture and angle provides coaches with guidance on how to achieve the most-efficient scientific training.

By improving fans' viewing experience of sporting events, boosting training efficiency for athletes and being virtual umpires and assistant coaches, AI has the potential to inject new vitality into the entire chain of sports training and participation, according to a report from accountancy firm PwC.

PwC said AI has a role to play in talent identification and selection, pregame preparation, in-game performance and postgame analysis as well as boosting management and operations of sports institutions.

"AI technologies are evolving fast and growing increasingly important for a sporting organization's ability to win games, improve coaches and players, manage their operations and grow, serve and retain their fans," PwC said in the report.

Li from Xiaoice agreed, saying that data and quantitative analysis have been used in games for a long time, but AI is considerably elevating every aspect of sports to a new level.

Chen Peijie, president of the Shanghai University of Sport, said earlier that the use of novel technologies in sports will help improve the quality and effectiveness of sports development and promote deepened integration of mass fitness and health.