There is a lot of technology available today to support elite sports. How does the technology and the data it generates help ski coaching, and where are we at in that area? In an interview with Maastohiihto.com, Olli Ohtonen, Head of snow sports at Vuokatti Olympic Training Center and the University of Jyväskylä’s Department of Sports Technology, talks about the topic. 

The virtual environment has been used in elite skiing for years, for example, to ski the sprint tracks of the upcoming World Championships on a treadmill. In the past, Kajaani University of Applied Sciences (KAMK) has built environments by hand, naturally taking time.

“In one project, we completed a tool that KAMK implemented. For example, Teemu Lemmettylä and Finnish national team head coach Teemu Pasanen were in Planica in May and June to explore the sites and walk the tracks on foot. They got a gpx file, i.e., course file, from there. Now, with this software developed by KAMK, we can use it to generate a virtual environment. It only takes a few minutes. You can also choose whether the environment is summer or winter, mountain or flat surface, snowy or wet, or sunny conditions,” says Ohtonen to Maastohiihto.com.

It speeds up the process. Once the file exists, a virtual environment can be generated directly for the treadmill training. We have created such files from Planica, and the next step is to work on the files for the Milan-Cortina Olympics and the Trondheim World Championships.

“Thanks to the project, we have brought these to Vuokatti, Rovaniemi, and in Jyväskylä, in other words, in all the places in Finland where it is possible to ski on a big treadmill.” 

 Is the virtual environment the most beneficial for sprint and sprint skiing?

“For sprinting, it is probably the most useful; it diversifies and adds content to intensity training. It allows you to adjust the speed and duration of a particular climb in a sprint, for example, when you want to develop your capacity along the way. You can monitor your ability on the sprint track very closely. Of course, in terms of normal distances, the potential is the same, you can do intensities at 3.75km or 5km track, but the potential for efficiency is not quite so big.”

The accuracy of the GPS data was used for the third year in a row at the Ruka World Cup. Precision GPS provides good information on the race’s progress for post-race analysis.

“Which techniques are used, where the differences are made, which are the most important sectors on the course, how the race is progressing. It is (precision GPS) a good tool for race analysis. Also, how the skis worked and how the downhill versus uphill sectors was performed.” 

“Of course, it would still require a person to be present with the team during the race and to be able to give feedback. Sure, it is pretty much automated, but there is still room for improvement in how to use all the info that comes from there. For example, preparing for races and doing pre-race training on the race track could be used to extract certain information, for example, on the pace distribution. This information could be used for race tactics. This kind of work was done in Beijing, for example.”

How interested are athletes in the most detailed data possible for race analysis, or is it more of a tool for coaches?

“Both. Whenever there has been measurement, athletes have been interested in seeing it. Coaches may be more interested in this upfront work; of course, competition analysis is also interesting.”

The data strategy for elite sports led by the Finnish Olympic Committee is building an application to collect all elite sports data in one place, a data pool. The developer of this application is Tieto Evry. In skiing, 150 users are currently involved, from whom data from Polar, Suunto, Oura, or all of these devices are collected. In addition, users answer short questionnaires daily, and the data is visualized to support coaching.

“Users are asked about their sleep, general mood, and health status. There are four questions in the morning and one question related to the workload in the evening. In addition, simple field test data can be included, for example, the results of a jumps, pull-up, or power test. Then there is the analytics view, where all the data can be viewed on a seasonal basis. The main thing is that it collects data in one place,” says Ohtonen.

For the coaches, the main benefit of the app is that the coach has better access to the status of their athlete group, even every morning.

“Based on that, the coach will hopefully make better coaching decisions. As a result, the coaching process for the athlete will be more efficient and lead to better results. At this point, we are at the point where data connectivity is the key to heart rate monitor databases. The idea is that we could also get race databases from FIS, IBU, and Finnish Ski Federation, as well as test databases. We are making good progress,” concludes Ohtonen.

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