Data science and physics give Olympic swimmers the edge

Credit: Mykal McEldowney, The Indianapolis Star/ USA TODAY Network

What do American Olympic swimmers Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh and Paige Madden, French gold-medalist Leon Marchand, and Australian Olympian Kyle Chambers have in common? In their training, these five leading swimmers and numerous others have employed (and, in the case of Douglass, personally helped develop) advanced data science and physics techniques to fine-tune their athletic performance.

Many of these top swimmers, who have traditionally relied on their “feel” in the water, now employ accelerometers strapped to their bodies, measuring movements in 3-D up to 512 times per second, thus capturing

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