Making the Paralympic Games even more exciting with data analytics

For those of us who like numbers, there were 19 new world records achieved at the Rio 2016 Olympics Games this year - not to mention new records about the number of medals.

The Rio 2016 Paralympic Games are just over, and already after the first week the athletes were well on track for achieving even more new world records than the 251 which were set in London 2012.

Atos has a strong belief in technology helping achieve equality, and the Paralympics are a great example of where great advances are taking place. New technology in swimwear has helped shave precious seconds off of world records. Lightweight carbon graphite rackets are helping the Williams sisters with the speed of their volley. And now carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer prosthetics are helping Paralympics runners catch up to Usain Bolt. In the Olympics, Lilly King set a new record of 1 minute 04.93 seconds in the 100-meter breaststroke, and in Paralympics Elizabeth Marks set a new record in her 100 meter breaststroke category of 1 minute 28.13 seconds using an IDEO (intrepid dynamic exoskeletal orthosis).

Because our experts are the IT integrators for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, there are a lot of facts and figures floating around our data centers. In collaboration with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), we are having our data scientists use our Atos Codex analytics tools to look at some of the trends on records and scores, probing the data, and asking a lot of questions. And there are a lot of interesting things going on.

• What is the World Record evolution in the different events? • What is the evolution of the number of participants per games, sports, events, and countries? • In which events is the average performance of all participants significantly improving? • Can network analysis reveal interesting patterns about athletes and results? • Which athletes are the youngest and oldest Paralympic champions in different events?

The Paralympics have always been about ability and not disability. With so many new records and increased participation, this is more so now than ever before. It’s making the Games even more exciting, and our initial results are showing that it will only be getting better.