The challenge

Atos has signed a long-term agreement with European Athletics, the governing body for athletics in Europe, as their Official Digital Partner in a deal which extends until 2024. The first results of this collaboration were witnessed at this year’s European Athletics Indoor Championships, which took place in Torun, in Poland, from 5-7 March 2021, where Atos designed and developed a new secure, digital and decarbonized ecosystem to manage data for the event focusing on fan and athlete engagement.

The solution

At this year’s European Athletics Indoor Championships Atos was responsible for capturing, processing, and publishing every data for all track and field events. Having successfully launched a mobile-first version of EA’s website, the new digital platform enabled the athletics fan not only to access the competition’s official statistics, results, distances, previous marks, and athletes’ personal records, but also to watch live streams here.

Atos were also responsible for transforming the raw information on site into compelling broadcast graphics and created an appealing virtual solution for the major events with augmented reality implemented into the broadcasts.

Business benefit

The full digital platform currently being designed and developed by Atos will help to increase visitors and collect new datasets of fan interaction, with the aim to reinforce personal experiences and increase fan participation.

As European Athletics’ Official Digital Partner, Atos also worked with European Broadcasting Union (EBU) to deliver a pioneering Virtual Media Centre where media could access the live video streams, live results, all related media information and even book remote mixed zone positions for interviews with athletes – facilitating the coverage of the event by media who were not able to be on site due to travel restrictions related to the current health pandemic.