For this reason, it is important to optimize the processing of “hundreds of thousands” of biological data and sports results, as well as the ITA’s anti-doping tests.
Cohen points out that it is necessary to “take advantage of all the opportunities that AI offers us”; however, he recognizes that due to the type of sensitive information, it must be treated ethically.
“If done well and with the approval of regulators, artificial intelligence will allow us to go much further in risk analysis and predictions,” he says.
Doping tests not only identify the use of illegal substances, they also reveal the consumption of prescription drugs; however, with the use of AI it would be possible to go beyond the analysis of substances. Since the Tokyo Games in 2021, the ITA has been developing a “performance passport” to measure and detect extraordinary improvements in performance.
“We’re going to predict some outcomes based on the athletes’ performance four years earlier,” Cohen explains.
The specialist explains that thanks to the use of AI, they could identify “unusual” results that may be linked to doping cases.
This “performance passport” has already been tested in swimming and weightlifting, two disciplines in which no external factors affect performance.
Last week he was introduced “to the cycling family,” says the ITA director general.
“It’s a tool we’d like to develop in cycling, whether on the track or in time trials, where it would allow us to measure power and individual performance,” he explains.
For the police in the fight against doping, following technological developments is even more important because it also shapes training methods, even for cheaters, and widens the gap between the richest and the rest.
“I’m not a prophet, but when we look at the combination of AI and biochemistry, we can reach a rather dystopian conclusion about what these two scientific advances can allow to improve performance,” warned the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach in an interview with AFP at the end of April.
With information from AFP
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