How data is shaping smarter strategies for sporting success

The future of sport is being written not only by talent and passion, but also by data.

- By Christophe Ley

Sports coaches have always made decisions based on experience, observation and intuition. But they are increasingly relying on hard evidence. Behind the scenes, a quiet revolution is transforming sport driven not by human skills but by data.

Wearable sensors, video trackers, GPS and health monitors now capture almost everything an athlete does. From their speed and movement to heart rate and positioning, countless data is being recorded.

But how best to apply all this data?

I work at the intersection of sports, statistics and artificial intelligence (AI), leading the modelling, interdisciplinary research, data science, applied mathematics and statistics (Midas) research team at the University of Luxembourg. Our goal is simple: use data to help athletes and coaches make better decisions.

Whether that's adjusting tactics pre-match, predicting outcomes or preventing injury, data science is changing the game.

The challenge is to make sense of this plethora of data, which comes from different sources and is of different types. And that is precisely where statistical modelling and machine learning come into play.

By finding patterns in the data, such as why a certain (over-)training has led to reduced performance or even injury, for example, we can provide actionable insights. Indeed, these insights don't just reveal or explain what has happened, but can also predict what is going to happen - and most importantly why.