January 19/17 9:03 am - COC Partners with SAS for Sports Analytics

Posted by Editoress on 01/19/17
 

On Wednesday [January 18th], the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) announced an eight-year partnership with SAS Canada. This deal marks the COC's first ever analytics partnership that will give the sport community the most advanced data technology available to help athletes reach the Olympic podium.

The COC is the first National Olympic Committee to form a long-term partnership with an analytics company and to leverage the power of data to give athletes and coaches an extra advantage in maximizing their performance outcomes.  [Note: Cycling Canada was one of the first sports to begin developing an analytics program, in partnership with Canadian Tire]

Through the use of its market leading analytics platform, SAS will help the COC and national sport federations use the wealth of data available to draw insights and project future scenarios in new innovative ways that will help them enhance the performance of the athletes and the sport system as a whole. The data generated will enable sport leaders and coaches to better allocate finite resources to yield the best results possible, identify the most promising athletes, and pinpoint the key factors that will enhance training programs. Ultimately the goal is to improve athlete performances at Games and help them win more medals.

By making its most innovative analytics platforms available to the COC and other national sport federations, SAS will help transform the COC into a data-driven organization equipped with fact-based decision making capabilities. This partnership will also lead to the formation of an analytics advisory council comprised of skilled data analysts and sports experts who will explore the best ways to use analytics to win more medals for Canada. Technologies such as SAS Visual Analytics and Data Modelling increase precision in decision making, talent identification and medal predictions. Invariably, it will help athletes succeed.

Chris Overholt, CEO & Secretary General, COC, stated: "This one of its kind partnership is a game changer in high performance sport in Canada. SAS, as the world-leading analytics company, will provide the technology and expertise to promote data-driven decision making in order to boost athlete performances at future Games. We are thrilled to work with SAS to help our athletes win more medals."

"SAS is excited to enter into this partnership with the COC and help Team Canada win more medals," said Cameron Dow, President of SAS Canada.  "Our work with the COC will bring Canada's world-class Olympic athletes to a new level of training and performance potential by taking a data-driven approach leading up to, and throughout, future Olympic Games."

Anne Merklinger, CEO, Own The Podium, commented: "OTP relies heavily on a data analytics program that has successfully helped drive podium performances at the Olympic and Paralympic Games for a select number of sports. This partnership with SAS builds on our existing program by extending the reach and resources available to Canada's entire sport community."