A Technology Partnership for the Last Fraction of Performance
In winter sport, material often decides between victory and defeat – which ski, which grind, which configuration suits which athlete, which competition and which conditions. Datico® is the official technology partner of Ski Austria, the Austrian Ski Federation, and has been working intensively with its technology department for several years. At the centre is a consistently data-driven approach to making material decisions more objective, more traceable and better.
Ski Austria at a Glance
Ski Austria is the umbrella organisation of Austrian snow sports and spans the full breadth of winter sport – from alpine skiing through ski jumping and Nordic combined to cross-country, biathlon, snowboard and many further disciplines. With its athletes, the federation ranks among the international elite. The technology department led by Michael Gufler is responsible for an area that co-decides medals: the optimal matching of material to athlete, competition and conditions.
The Challenge: The Optimum in a Triangle
The task of the technology department can be described as an optimisation problem in a triangle – between the athlete, the respective competition with its environmental conditions, and the material. For each combination of these three factors there is an optimum: precisely the material that enables the best performance for the individual athlete under the specific conditions of the competition.
The difficulty lies in the complexity: a multitude of skis, grinds and configurations meets changing athletes, snow and weather conditions. Anyone who wants to reliably find the optimum here needs a structured data foundation – instead of relying on experience and gut feeling alone.
The Solution with Datico®
The Datico® LIFE HUB serves Ski Austria above all to systematically manage the materials – skis, grinds and complete ski configurations – and at the same time to record the physiological data of the testers. This gradually builds a database that enables data-driven recommendations and optimally supports the technicians in their decisions. The principle: learn from the data of the past in order to make the best possible decision at each competition.
This makes the Datico® Data Value Chain visible in the project:
- Data in Connection – material and configuration data (skis, grinds) and physiological test data are brought together at a central point.
- Data in Context – in a structured database, the factors of the triangle – athlete, competition, material – are related to one another and made analysable.
- Data in Communication – the technicians receive a reliable basis to make the right material decision on competition day.
- Data in Consistency – the data remains structured, comparable and under the control of the federation.
Step by Step: Rollout Across the Disciplines
The Datico® LIFE HUB was first introduced in cross-country skiing and biathlon. It was then extended to ski jumping and is now being rolled out step by step to various alpine sports. This expansion deliberately proceeds division by division – so the shared data foundation grows with every discipline, and data-driven material optimisation becomes usable across more and more parts of Ski Austria.
Voice of the Customer
“Our goal is to find the optimal material for every athlete and every competition. With the Datico® LIFE HUB, we bring material, grind and test data together in a structured way for the first time – and learn from the data of past competitions. This way our technicians increasingly base their decisions on data rather than gut feeling alone.”
— Michael Gufler, Head of Technology, Ski Austria
Conclusion
The cooperation between Ski Austria and Datico® shows how a classic field of experience – material tuning in elite winter sport – becomes a data-driven discipline. Datico® provides the foundation: manage material and configurations, record physiological data, relate everything and make it available for the decision on competition day. This brings the optimum in the triangle of athlete, competition and material a step closer: Better Data. Better Decisions. Better Outcomes.