Steve Dettre, event services director at Infostrada Sports, outlines what the sports information company will be supplying to Vancouver 2010.
Infostrada is a provider of comprehensive sports statistics and information services
All facts and figures on matches, athletes, teams, results, competitions, tournaments, stadiums, sponsors and much more are stored in what are now con
Also covers historical results, articles, biographies, actual statistics and sports-related material such as photos, news, calendars and memorabilia o
Infostrada Sports offers a wide range of products and services, which, though varied in look and feel, have one thing in common: they are all about sports. For the Olympic Games in Vancouver, Infostrada Sports is delivering a highly-specialised service, including past results data on all the Olympic sports and disciplines, as well as information on all athletes, coaches, referees and teams.
The information is used by Organising Committees in their INFO systems, feeding information to the accredited media, as well as the rest of the Olympic family.
It provides: · Recent and historical results on all the sports, such as world cups, world championships, ranking lists. · Historical data on past Olympic Games. · Background information on the event, sports, federations, contacts etc · World wide all sports rankings · World records and best performances
For Biographies, we deliver information on the ‘person behind the athlete’. We look at how they got involved in their sport, their hobbies, injuries, heroes and so forth.
All the fields are based on our experience working with the media, and being involved in an International Olympic Committee project called ORIS (Olympic Results and Information Service).
Infostrada Sports has delivered this information to the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, Athens 2004 Olympic Games, Turin 2006 Olympic Winter Games, DOHA Asian Games 2006, Rio Pan American Games 2007 Beijing 2008 Olympic Games and now, the recently signed contract for the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games and the Gunagzhou 2010 Asian Games.
The project to collect and process all of this information is at times all-consuming.
It entails having an excellent project team that manages the planning of all the data capture. Added to this we have operational experience in how to collect this information, and a wide network of researchers into whom we can tap to increase the flow of information.
But that is just the beginning of the process.
Collecting the information is one thing: but what to do with it once it has been found – that’s the key of Infostrada Sports’ success.
We have constructed our own databases, for results, records and biographies, that allow us to store, sort, process and publish this information.
Additionally, we have the technical expertise in how to deliver this information to the Olympic Games’ technology partner, Atos Origin.
This is of critical importance in such a project, as the transfer of the information is just as important as the collection of the data: it’s not much use just sitting in our databases and not being made available to the Olympic Family.
The formatting of the data for direct input into the Atos Origin systems is a complex and highlighly technical process.
We have the technical capacity to deliver all of the required fields to Atos Origin, having worked with them since the Athens Games to deliver and manage content in INFO systems, not just at the Olympic Games.
For many sports, results are widely available, either by being captured ‘live’ from television or other medium, but in many instances, the challenge is just to get the information. This especially applies to events in more exotic locations, and regiona or continental competitions.
For Biographies, we have a special problem.
Once a result has been recorded, it is very rare for it to change.
But Biographies of athletes need to be updated constantly, as athletes get injured, win awards, change clubs, change coach, move residence, get married, change name etc.
Infostrada Sports has maintained Biographies for nine years, through its Biography Research Project.
Led and managed by a core team of fulltime professionals, Infostrada Sports also taps into the sports fan base, using fans around the world who know and love their sports.
Additionally, many media students have taken part in the project, using their budding skills to help research, fine tune and publish the content.
Every day, about 300 biographies of athletes, teams, coaches and NOCs are added to, updated, checked and ready for publishing, to be used by our many media, sport and organising clients.
Another service we provide to events is the delivery of a Games-time news service, providing specialists in the sports, competent language-savvy reporters who can talk to athletes in their own language, an experienced production desk, and a first class statistics team to round out the package.
With this service, we can offer any event the best, most professional service to ensure the accredited media at the event are receiving up-to-date and useful information, as well as news for the event’s own website.
Obviously, projects for the Summer and Winter Olympic Games are very different beasts.
One obvious difference is the size. At the Winter Games there are about 2,800 athletes competing, while at the Summer Games it is 10,500.
Having said that, for our project, we need to capture about 5,000 Winter athletes, and about 17,000 Summer ones.
This is because for many sports, the final entries – the athletes who will actually compete at the Games – is not known until quite late.
We cannot afford to wait, and so for some countries, we track all possible athletes who could qualify. Then, when the final entries are known, we publish only the ones who made it through!
In general terms, doing research for the Winter Games tends to be a little less frantic for the research team: most, if not all of the athletes have to take part in the various World Cup seasons to qualify for the Games.
There are still the odd ‘wild cards’, but mostly the athletes are known.
And, with a real focus on countries from Europe, North America and east Asia, there is also a much more constant flow of information: many of the winter sport athletes have their own websites, and are keen to push out as much information as possible.
Contrast the information about Michael Walchofer, Austria’s Downhill World Cup overall winner (http://www.michaelwalchhofer.at/) and what you could find about Philippine wrestler Marcus Girard Valda!
The sheer volume of numbers of athletes for the Summer Games is the biggest hurdle – it becomes a massive amount of data to research, update, check and publish.
Over the years of doing this project, we have developed excellent working relationships with many National Olympic Committees and International Federations, who gradually realise that our service ensures the best, most up-to-date, accurate information on the athletes for the media at the Games.
For further information about Infostrada Sports, contact Tel: +31 30 600 7171, or Click Here
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