FOR TEAM USA ATHLETES, DATA ANALYTICS OFFER NEW ANSWERS TO TRAINING AND INJURY PREVENTION CHALLENGES

In February, when temperatures at home in Carbondale, Illinois, regularly dip below 30 degrees, Deanna Price packs her bags and heads to the Elite Athlete Training Center in Chula Vista, California.

A main draw, of course, is the climate: a pleasant 67 degrees or so, offering an optimal training environment all winter long. Another benefit is TrackMan, the high-technology analytical program that helped Price win the country’s first-ever world championships medal in hammer throw — a gold — at last year’s event in Doha, Qatar.

“It’s very, very cool — they do a camera in the back (of the throwing circle) and a camera in the front, and they have the TrackMan (device) right there on the side,” said Price, a 2016 Olympian.

“Every time you throw, it hooks up directly to the computer. Whenever you take a throw, you walk over and see the metrics and then look at your video and it shows your release angle. ... It’s just very, very cool.”

Price is one of scores of athletes who have benefitted from the cutting-edge resources offered by the United States Olympic & Paralympic Committee’s sports technology team, whose mission is to discover and integrate applied technologies into training regimens and help athletes and coaches better assess and enhance performance.

www.teamusa.org/News/2020/November/12/For-Team-USA-Athletes-Data-Analytics-Offer-New-Answers-To-Training-And-Injury-Prevention-Challenges