US Ski Team Used VR for Winter Olympics Training

Members of the United states Ski & Snowboard team have turned to VR headsets in order to requite them an extra border when competing in the PyeongChang 2022 Olympic Games.

Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR headsets take been paired with balance boards which tilt in tandem with the on-screen activity, to create the awareness of bombing downwardly specific slopes during moments exterior the normal preparation regimen.

The idea is to give athletes including Olympic champions Lindsey Vonn and Mikaela Shiffrin a "mental access" alee of the main outcome, in the words of high performance director Troy Taylor.

Speaking to BBC Sport, Taylor said that while the real training takes place on ski slopes, it's all about the marginal gains which y'all have to seek out during those off-piste moments.

"We try and get on the snowfall 150-200 days a year and are chasing snow effectually the world," Taylor says.

"Each time we are on the snow we get maybe six to x preparation runs, for about thirty-sixty seconds at a fourth dimension, so that is only 3 to 10 minutes a day. Times that past 150-200 days and information technology is roughly 10-20 hours a year... The Olympics is the biggest result in an athlete's life and it doesn't take a genius to work out that skiing on a gradient six times is non optimal time."

The Downhill, Super M, and Combined events volition take identify at the Jeongseon Tall Centre, which hosted the FIA Apline Ski World Cups in 2022 and 2022; information technology was here where the 360 footage currently being used past the US team was captured past virtual reality start-up STRIVR, which has besides worked with NFL teams.

Jeremy Bailenson, STRIVR co-founder and managing director of the Virtual Human Interaction Lab at Stanford Academy said back in January that: "U.s. Ski & Snowboard athletes should have a strategic advantage because they have been able to not but visualize the course, but practice information technology over and over over again, going over decision points such equally turns, and recognizing landmarks on the grade.

"In improver to rehearsing body motions and decisions, they will take an overall, holistic familiarity with the course, which will be invaluable as they traverse the actual mountain. I suspect that their mental preparation will be unmatched."

Skiers can fifty-fifty adjust the video feed to simulate visibility at different times of the day or in unlike weather conditions, and can simply pop the headsets on and bound on the boards in a hotel room, at dwelling, or whenever whenever they feel similar they need a visual refresher of a class'south layout. But the idea isn't just to make athletes more than familiar with the twists and turns of each slope.

Combined with the VR headsets and residuum boards is the Halo Sport headphones past Halo Neuroscience. These cans characteristic soft cream tips built into the headband which transmit electrical currents to the encephalon's motor cortex, in a bid to assist with muscle memory. Taylor says that employ of the Halo Sport has coincided with a heave in functioning of the U.s.a. Nordic combined ski jump team.

Some other flake of kit is a set of smart strobe goggles from Vima, which can reduce or block out vision in ane or both optics in social club to strengthen athletes' non-ascendant eyes, which in theory, lead to skiers developing weaker turns on i side.

The 2022 Wintertime Olympics kick off this Friday, Feb. 9, with the Opening Ceremony being circulate at 6am ET and the first skiing consequence, Women's Cantankerous-Country, taking place from 2am ET on Sat.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/news/19480/us-ski-team-used-vr-for-winter-olympics-training

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