From an Athlete aspect, the Technology will once again revolve more around the basic training equipment and the in-depth video analysis of the respective domains. The athlete development equipment has remained pretty much the same over the past few years but it’s the volume of their use that has increased. Athletes, now, are more inclined towards using these tools compared to three or four years ago. A prime example of that is wrestler Bajrang Punia, Asian gold medal winner in the 65 kg category in wrestling. Punia ditched his traditional approach for a more technical approach. Spending ample time looking at footage's of other players to scout their weaknesses and keep an eye on trends in wrestling before the Asian Games. The approach clearly worked and lead Punia to a gold. The approach is expected to pick up at the Asian Games, as it did at the 2016 Olympics and the 2018 Commonwealth games.
The Asian Games, the continent’s largest multi-sports event is currently underway in Indonesia an event which is witnessing thousands of athletes from forty-five Asian countries competing in several locations throughout the country. The event provides immense competition among various sporting disciplines and much entertainment for the spectators involved at any level. As is usually the case with technology at such events, the Asian Games too seem fit to embrace a more technological advancement this year, advancements affecting all major sectors in a sporting environment namely, the athlete performance, crowd experience, and security measures.
The Google-Viewers linkup
A lot of the crowd connection in this year’s Asian Games is coming from Google. Various inputs and facilities have been added which are aimed towards easing the crowd interaction and easing their way into these games. The Google Search option will provide users with up-to-date information about the competitions. It will provide the viewers with all the latest news about the event including the medal tally rankings.
The Google Translate by Speech feature is set to ease the traveling factor for International fans, helping them communicate better both locally and also for retrieving Event related information. For those going to the stadiums, the Indoor Maps and Street View feature on Google Maps to learn about the venues. These features will allow users to check more than 25 venues in Indonesia, including the Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Central Jakarta, Jakabaring Sports City in Palembang, South Sumatra, and Gunung Mas in Puncak, West Java.
Athlete aspect
From an Athlete aspect, the Technology will once again revolve more around the basic training equipment and the in-depth video analysis of the respective domains. The athlete development equipment has remained pretty much the same over the past few years but it’s the volume of their use that has increased. Athletes, now, are more inclined towards using these tools compared to three or four years ago. A prime example of that is wrestler Bajrang Punia, Asian gold medal winner in the 65 kg category in wrestling. Punia ditched his traditional approach for a more technical approach. Spending ample time looking at footages of other players to scout their weaknesses and keep an eye on trends in wrestling before the Asian Games. The approach clearly worked and lead Punia to a gold. The approach is expected to pick up at the Asian Games, as it did at the 2016 Olympics and the 2018 Commonwealth games.
A step into the unknown
The Asian Esports Federation (AeSF) earlier this year confirmed that Esports games will be featured at the 2018 Asian Games in Jakarta, Indonesia. Last year, the Olympic Council of Asia announced a partnership with Alisports, the sporting subsidiary of Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba to add esports events to the 2018 and 2022 Asian Games. The Asian Games’ list of titles is a reflection of current esports trends in the region. While esports will be a “demonstration sport” only in the 2018 program, it has been confirmed as a full-medal event for the 2022 games in Hangzhou, China. The games included for the Aian games are League of Legends, Hearthstone, Starcraft II, Pro Evolution Soccer, Clash Royale, and Arena of Valor. The inclusion of Esports in the Asian games domain is something that was probably unthinkable a few years ago. It symbolizes somewhat of a new beginning with Technology’s involvement but in a whole new way at such an event, possibly a sign of things to come in the feature.
Looking forward
Technology is only expected to move forward with time, especially in the Spectator experience domain. However, the prospects for the overall development of Technology are quite bright. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will provide a grand platform for the introduction of new innovations and exploration into their possible long-term usage. Some of the plans for the 2020 games include; Robot Village: A worldwide leader in the Robotic industry, Japan plans to unleash a small army of Robots to serve all international visitors. Japan hopes to have them ready before the opening ceremony.
Facial Recognition: The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo will deploy a facial recognition system to identify more than 300,000 athletes, staff, volunteers, and journalists at the games. It’s the first time that facial recognition technology will be used for security at the Olympics. Virtual Reality: For fans watching at home, that means live VR broadcasts powered by Intel's True VR platform, with 360-degree replays, so you can feel totally immersed in the action within your living room. Intel will also light up the sky above the stadium with its Shooting Star drones, which can create 3D images as an alternative to traditional fireworks. Other interesting innovations include broadcasting the games in 8K HD, Autonomous Taxis on the road for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Innovations such as the aforementioned are a signal as to where technology is taking us, its importance in our lives and its importance in sporting events such as the Asian Games and the Olympics.
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