The role of artificial intelligence in analyzing and predicting sport performance

Artificial intelligence can become a very useful tool in predicting sports performance and perhaps the potential for athletic success if used cleverly, says Dr Leonidas Petridis, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sports Life Sciences.

On 15 and 16 October, 2024, the Hungarian University of Sports Science (TF) will host a major international scientific symposium bringing together some of the world's most renowned researchers to discuss the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI), sport and ageing.

The international scientific symposium entitled "The 2nd Biomechanics in Sport and Ageing: Artificial Intelligence (AI)” is organized by the university and the Department of Kinesiology, and it will take place at TF, Budapest.

The aim of the symposium is to provide a scientific platform for a state-of-the-art update on the progress of AI, in sport biomechanics and ageing. A total of 14 experts from nine countries will present data-based examples of the use of AI in sport and ageing research.

“The Biomechanics symposium is an excellent initiative, it creates a tradition at the university”, explains Dr Leonidas Petridis, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Sports Life Sciences at the Hungarian University of Sports Science (TF). “It is important that the event should be linked to the university and the conference should be topic-specific, given that science today needs to focus on a specific aspect of a certain discipline. Regarding the main theme of the symposium, AI definitely has to have a leading role.”

One of the most exciting sessions of the conference is the workshop titled “Performance assessment and prediction” that will focus on the role of AI in predicting sports performance and career.

“By using AI, most diagnostic devices can not only recognize the type of movement you are doing but they also assess, interpret and predict health and performance indicators. AI could be an extremely promising tool in sport diagnostics in the future: based on a single measurement, experts may tell in advance what progress an athlete is expected to achieve and perhaps how far he can get in his sports career. To sum it up, AI can and will play a key role in prediction sports performance in the future. However, AI could be a double-edged sword as well if used in an incorrect and invalid way. Therefore, experts using AI in prediction have a lot of responsibility so they have to be careful”, warns Dr Petridis.

Dr Petridis also explained that his research fellows have already collected a lot of sports-related data at the university by measuring athletes, and now they are ready to analyze these data using AI applications.

An exciting question is who will be willing to use the data and predictions provided by AI.

“At first place coaches and sport practitioners. According to the athlete’s profile explored with AI, coaches can design individualized training plans optimizing loading and hopefully development in the long term”, added Dr Petridis. 

The programme of the 2nd Biomechanics Symposium can be found here and you can register for the event here

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