"Working Hard is a Talent in itself" says Laurent Carol, Deputy Technical Director of the Luxembourg Olympic and Sport Committee, and former Olympic swimmer.



In the first of two shows on the Olympics, my guests this week are:



- Laurent Carnol - Deputy Technical Director, Luxembourg Olympic and Sport Committee; Comité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois (COSL), former Olympic swimmer

- Dr Yves Dominicy - Sport Statistician

- Loïc Hoscheit - ALAD Director - anti-doping agency Luxembour

- Marie Muller - former Olympic athlete - Judo



Laurent Carnol is the Deputy Technical Director of the Luxembourg Olympic and Sport Committee; Comité Olympique et Sportif Luxembourgeois (COSL), and a former Olympian swimmer himself. Laurent took part in Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016. In London, Laurent got to the semi finals in 200m breaststroke and was a finalist several times in the European Championships for the same event. Aside from his own successful career as an elite athlete, Laurent was a teacher at the Sport Lycée in Luxembourg, a lecturer at Lunex University and Dual Career Coordinator at the Luxembourg Institute for High Performance in Sport.



Laurent talks to us about the selection process which decides what delegation will eventually be going to the Olympics in Paris this summer. The qualification pathways and athlete preparation requires enormous effort not just from the athlete themselves, but also from the team around that athlete.

 

Yves Dominicy is a sport statistician and has written two books with Christophe Ley:

 

Science meets Sports: when statistics are more than numbers

Statistics Meets Sports: What We Can Learn from Sports Data

Sport analytics collects data to try to understand patterns therein. For instance, it is used for ranking and prediction, talent identification, scheduling and injury prevention.



Machine learning is now being used in tennis to profile the emotional expressions of tennis players and link that to performance. Yves also mentions that tennis rankings may become more accurate if based on serve / return etc. rather than points.



During Covid-19 in 2020, the International Swimming League organised a whole month of races providing an intense, short period to analyse the effect of multiple races on the performance of different profiles.



The use of data analytics is extremely valuable to prevent injury. It is now possible to run risk profiles to plan around potential injury points for a person.



Loïc Hoscheit is the Director of ALAD, Agence Luxembourgeoise antidopage.



Luxembourg's independent anti-doping agency tasked with supervising the country's most high-level athletes and competitions; they are tasked with ensuring Luxembourg sends out clean athletes. ALAD also offers guidance to all athletes with the potential to qualify for the Olympics and ensures a solid testing programme is carried out prior to the Games within this group.



The rules are complex, and keep changing. Naturally there is often a cloud of uncertainty around medication, but also supplements.



Marie Müller, a judoka (judo player), received a wild card from the IOC in 2008 where she finished 9th in the Beijing Games. Between 2009 and 2012, Marie entered the world top 16 for judo in her category and qualified for the London Games in 2012. There she lost in a dramatic fight for bronze and finished 5th.Marie’s entire career was overshadowed by injury, which ultimately made the decision to retire from judo for her in 2016.



Marie and Laurent both talk about not being able to do their sport since they retired, but have turned to other sport.  Marie also talks about the pressure of weight in her sport.



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