By Chloe Pellican, Sport Intelligence Officer at UK Sport
At the start of March this year, a group of eight forward thinkers from across the Great Britain Olympic and Paralympic system embarked on a study tour to Boston, Massachusetts. The purpose of the tour was to provide an immersive and inspirational learning experience through exposure to world‐leading data‐informed organisations.
As well as attendees from the UK Sport Sport Intelligence Team, the visiting party also included staff from the English Institute of Sport, British Athletics, British Swimming and GB Taekwondo. We spent our time visiting the New England Patriots and the Boston Celtics, with the tour centred around attendance of the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference at the Boston Convention Centre.
On Thursday 5th March, we started the tour by visiting the New England Patriots at the Gillette Stadium, where they have both their stadium and training facilities. As a group, we deliberated various topics such as performance, medical, nutrition and strength & conditioning. Additionally, we heard from them about their views on best practice for cross team working with data and discussed athlete trajectories, as well as data visualisation for coaches and athletes. There were many stimulating and memorable conversations between those in attendance and the Patriots staff around these subjects.
After the visit to the Patriots, we headed over to the training facility for the Boston Celtics and here, discussed topics such as data challenges and emerging and future technologies. Delving into the environments of other sports that are unique from the Olympic and Paralympic systems we work within, and seeing what they do, how they do it and why, was particularly insightful for us all.
We spent the next two days at the MIT Sloan Conference, listening to different speakers from a wide range of sports and organisations. Due to the vast number of sessions and array of topics, it was beneficial for the attendees to go through the process of prioritising what they wanted to see and liaising with the rest of the group to maximise the range of sessions attended overall.
The tour itself enabled people from different sports and organisations to spend time with one another outside of their daily environments, allowing us to build connections and learn from others within the system. This was identified by all the attendees as highly valuable and lasting for the future.
Garry Owen: Performance Analyst GB Taekwondo
“I found the tour very beneficial and felt that I learnt a lot in a short space of time. It was great to visit some high-performance environments and witness the successes and challenges that those in similar roles with greater resource face. The conference opened the door to a lot of valuable contacts, ideas and knowledge that will add benefit to my role within sport.”
Lorna Belford: Sport Intelligence Consultant for English Institute of Sport
“It was an unbelievable few days and I really value the time I spent with the other tour attendees. The insights I gained from discussions with the Patriots, Celtics and others over the conference were also invaluable. I will treasure this week for a long time, and it is definitely one of my personal career highlights so far.”