Issue #14 - Sports Tech at the Tokyo Olympics
Featuring an exclusive interview with Shogo Miyagi
July is the month of the Tokyo Olympics in Japan.
Before the event started, Japan PM Suga vowed the Olympics would be safe, after deciding to ban most spectators and use crowd alternatives instead.
And if you haven’t seen it yet, the opening ceremony has seen a spectacular show of drone technology.
In other tech news, the country has approved ¥4.4 trillion for green growth, as well as started issuing vaccine passports free of charge.
Japan’s Cabinet Office has also launched the Society 5.0 Expo jointly with the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology at Tokyo Skytree Town.
Finally, back to the Olympics, this edition is witnessing many technological and design innovations, including the amazing, Hydrogen-Burning Tokyo Olympic Cauldron designed by Nendo.
This issue of TÉKUNI is about sports technologies, and particularly those utilised during the Tokyo Olympics 2020.
👨💻 TÉKUNI Exclusive - Shogo Miyagi
Shogo Miyagi graduated from Carleton University with a Bachelors degree in history, to pursue his passion to become a history teacher.
After graduating, he first became an English teacher at Berlitz Japan. There, he learned how various industries work in Japan, through interactions with students and working professionals with diverse career backgrounds.
“Sadly, I soon realised it was not a profession I wanted to pursue further and left the position a year later.”
After job hunting for a few months, Shogo joined Atos, a French IT company that was a major partner for the Olympics and Paralympics. There, he worked in the Results department.
“We handled all results-related data – i.e. the score you see on your television, the match time you see on the scoreboard, which player received a penalty, how many medals a NOC/country has won, etc.”
The company’s purpose was to collect and distribute this data to their clients worldwide so that everyone around the world could follow the games in real-time.
“After working there for a year, I was furloughed due to COVID-19 and then joined Wipro as an IT Support, which is where I currently work.”
Shogo said he did not have much knowledge about sport-related technologies until he joined the Olympics.
“As I immersed myself in our work, I enjoyed every aspect, especially as a sports fanatic. In the future should the opportunity arise, I would love to re-join the industry.”
During his time working for the Olympics, Shogo had to make sure that all results data was accurate and to make sure that all equipment were functioning/behaving as expected.
“I would be assigned to a specific sport to work in and assigned to work with another member from the Results department and a team from Swiss Timing, which is a subsidiary of OMEGA, the Swiss watch brand.”
During the match, commentators would use specifically designated laptops that contained information about the teams in the game that they could pull on during their commentary.
This information was generated by the Swiss Timing team and distributed by Shogo’s team so that commentators would receive live data as the match progressed.
“My team member and I had a laptop to monitor this data and another just in case we needed to raise tickets on IT Service Management, in the scenario that the distributed data was inaccurate.”
Other equipments used were also provided by Swiss Timing, which supplies equipment for the Olympic and Paralympic games, as well as providing data generation.
“Due to our partnership, it was our responsibility to ensure that all equipment provided – scoreboards, score tracking machines, etc, were properly functioning.”
Speaking about other innovative technologies used at the Tokyo Olympics, Shogo says the event will be the first edition to use facial recognition.
“They’re using this for security and [to make sure] every athlete and staff member’s face are registered within the database.”
More generally, Shogo believes technology has influenced the Olympics profoundly since its early editions.
“As we can see, IVR (instant video replay) and VAR (video assistant referee) are becoming more common and things are becoming more automated. However, I still believe there is major room for improvement.”
According to Shogo, one of the goals the Olympics has is to go green, but he believes this goal is difficult to achieve as a lot of the work is still paper based.
“For example, during a match, if an athlete receives a penalty or if there is an incident, a written report is required so that this report can be officialized and distributed globally.”
Yet to write this report, the federations’ officials would handwrite it as their signature is required.
Furthermore, there are various reports written throughout the sporting event. Every match has various reports about the match. This is one of many.
“I do not recall correctly which report gets printed for each match, but each required report would be printed and thus there would be a huge stack of printed paper by the end of the tournament.”
Another disadvantage Shogo has experienced was the presence of technical drawbacks such as how certain environments can limit the use of technology.
“I remember in a certain event that because the walls of our designated room were thick and full of metal, the radio frequencies were not as strong as they should have been. Another case I remember was during a test event, one of our technologies failed and due to this, the results data had to be distributed via SMS.”
Overall, Shogo worked in the events that led up to the Olympic and Paralympic test events, homologation events, and the Test Rehearsal 1 event for one year.
“Compared to the rest of my colleagues, [one year] is not much for an event that takes four years of planning and scheduling. Yet, despite my short time, I absolutely enjoyed [it] and would love to be part of it in the future, hopefully in time for Paris 2024!”
❓ Want to find out more about the latest tech news in Japan?
🔗 Here is the newsletter’s link section:
Tokyo mom creates COVID-19 vaccination database - Reuters
NTT, Intel, Docomo to offer Olympic viewing in 5G - NHK
Analysis of Asteroid Ryugu Samples Begins - Grape
Japan approves ¥4.4 trillion for green growth - Japan Today
Govt. commissions study of job search websites - NHK
Japan's robotics market sees boom - Japan Today
Japan's Narita, Haneda airports start facial recognition - Kyodo
Japan to allow TV airwaves to be used for 5G - Japan Today
All about Japan’s vaccine passport - TimeOut
Mitsubishi Electric's doctored-data scandal widens - Reuters
Japan seeks stronger cybersecurity amid new threats - Kyodo
Toshiba needs 'prompt, appropriate' disclosure - Reuters
Internet hoaxes fan COVID vaccine hesitancy - Kyodo
Honda, Nissan saw China sales tumble in June - Reuters
Drunk droning arrest first of its kind - Sora News
ANA logs net loss of 51.16 bil. yen in April-June - Kyodo
Nintendo announces new Switch - Comicbook
Computer calculates risk at National Stadium - NHK
The beginning of Steve Jobs' lifelong love of shin-hanga - NHK
A giant 3D cat has appeared in Shinjuku - TimeOut
Old locomotive steams ahead - The Mainichi
teamLab updates exhibitions for the summer - TimeOut
Japan’s train station that looks like a spaceport - Sora News 24
Billionaire seeks companions for moon trip - Tech Times
How a ’90s drama theme song calm babies - Sora News 24
Commercial quantum computer debuts in Japan - NHK
Casio’s Pac-Man watch is pure childhood nostalgia - TimeOut
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