Jonathan Males | Performance1 - “Ok, your drone is linked up, let’s start the session now”.  Hearing his coach’s voice, the slalom paddler takes smooth powerful strokes away from the bank, not paying any attention to the tiny battery-powered drone that buzzes 5 metres above his head.  The drone’s HD camera gives a birds-eye view of him as he paddles, and is streamed live to the coach’s I-Pad 9, along with the video stream from his helmet mounted HD camera.  His coach can switch between the two video streams, watching and recording in high definition as the paddler takes his first run down the Olympic course.  By the time he’s finished the run and paddled back to the elevator, the coach has beamed an edited version back to watch on his helmet’s Google visor, so he can review his performance as he returns back up to the start pool. He talks the paddler through the run via his in-helmet earphones, to emphasise the key learning points that he’s seeing in his visor display.

The Lee Valley course was one of the first in the world to go hi tech.  Sensors are implanted on each slalomist’s paddle, helmet, buoyancy aid and boat, and each slalom pole is electronically ‘live’ so that it can record the speed, direction and proximity of a passing paddler.  As well as removing the need for human gate judges in a competition, this also means that the coach receives real time data on a paddler’s progress down the course.  The coach can see in real time how long it has taken a paddler to complete an upstream gate, with instant benchmarking to the paddler’s own norms, other paddlers in the same session, or world class times for a particular sequence.  Only a few years ago this would have taken a performance analyst an hour or more to code up after a training session – now it’s available in real time.

Advances in telemetry also allow the coach to monitor the paddler’s heart rate, brain patterns and physiology during a training session.  Interest in heart rate isn’t new, but brain scanning gives instant feedback on the paddler’s level of concentration. If he starts to day-dream, the coach can pick up straight away with some well-judged feedback.  Most of this data is processed automatically, and is compared against the week’s training plan to ensure that the workload stays on track.  Any data showing an unusual work-load, over-extension or potential muscular injury will be streamed straight to the team physiotherapist, who will have a treatment plan ready by the time the paddler is off the water.  At the end of the session the paddler will take a leak into a special urinal with embedded sensors that analyse electrolyte levels.  By the time he’s showered and gone upstairs to the café, a personally tailored recovery meal will be ready based on the calories consumed in the session and his body’s specific nutritional needs.

After eight runs, the coach tells the paddler it’s time to finish up. The drone is quiet now, having flown itself back to its stand to re-charge. The paddler stretches out and enjoys the satisfying tiredness of a hard training session as he warms down on the lake, “that was a good work-out, thanks coach”.

“No worries”, replies the coach, “you were really consistent on the upstreams today, that was your best session for the whole month.  The data is all uploaded so you can have a look again later in your virtual session this afternoon.”

“How’s the weather where you are?” asks the paddler. 

“Oh, you know it’s always sunny here in Australia. I’m heading over to the beach for a surf now. Same time tomorrow morning for a tech session?”