With Big Ben watching over, the 2012 Summer Olympics officially open this evening in London. The flags will be waving, the athletes processing, and the torch guiding the way -- igniting the Olympic spirit in all of us.
In that spirit, QlikTech International, a business intelligence company, has created the QlikView Global Games App. With the free app, you can visualize, analyze, compare, and contrast the history and results of summer games over the ages. You can slice and dice the data -- on athletes, events, countries, and more -- to your heart's content. QlikTech has a few suggestions, all of which you might use to impress your friends and colleagues with your knowledge of Olympic trivia:
The correlation between an athlete's height and the amount and type of medals won
Who the oldest or the youngest athletes are in a specific summer games
How well the host country performs in each event type
What country characteristics are associated with greater success in the summer games
But this isn't all the stuff of past glories. The app will let you keep up with history in the making, too. Using data provided by Infostradasports, QlikTech said it will update the app daily at 11:00 p.m. GMT, which, if I've done the conversion properly, is 6:00 p.m. ET -- just in time for playing around with on your commute home (assuming you're not behind a wheel).
I took the liberty of doing some basic playing around with the app, taking an admittedly US-centric view. To begin the slideshow, click on the first slide below, and once you've finished, try it out for yourself. Be sure to report back here with the fun stuff you've uncovered!
Beth, they now how and when to market. If they are able to provide more details like current schedule, results/winners, next day schedule etc then such apps are of great use.
It's a great application for many constituents and it's also a great teaching tool for educators teaching students about the Olympics and their evolution over time. An excellent use of analytics to make this worldwide competition accessible to all!
@Hospice, surely the trainers for all these Olympics sports already know all the insights from this data, either by crunching the data already or intuitively. It would be interesting to know, for instance, how US Volleyball has used analytics to determine the best candidates (based on height, weight and speed) for each position on the volleyball court.
If there is a correlation between athelete's height and type of medals won, might there be a correlation between athelete's weight and type of medals won as well?
Surely there will be a correlation between weight and medals in particular events and such a correlation will help athletes maintain the right weight. As far as correlation between height and events are concerned, some of the correlation might be due to genuine factors such as for a high jump event, height might matter. However, for some events, it'l just be a co-incident and from which, there is nothing to learn for athletes.
Hospice, - I'm looking at it from the consumer point of view...how analytics can help me understand the game, the scores and standings, who has a chance and who doesn't, Which players may be up for big signings for the next season based on their current value...etc
"Whats more interesting is the amazing facts like those about various correlations."
I like that as well. Do you think this data would have any impact on the way athelets prepare for future events? If there is a correlation between athelete's height and type of medals won, might there be a correlation between athelete's weight and type of medals won as well?
Analytics is now being used in all kinds of sports. Players and coaches are using data and analytics to optimize their strategies, tune their technique and prepare for games.
I guess the whole point is to aid those of us with few clues on Olympic games and help us steal a little more fun. I'd really love to have one like this for all football competitions. I'm especially blank in those.
Even I think its great for educational purpose for the kids and this app can build some motivation into athletes who'l use it. People surely want to know the amounts of medal their country has secured and whether the medal count is on a declining trend or otherwise. Whats more interesting is the amazing facts like those about various correlations.
Seems great. If I was an olympics fan, I would have certainly loved to have this app as a must in my smartphone. Unfortunately, I dont follow olympics. But the hard work devoted to developing the app must have been great. I appreciate the effort and I hope that the developers get a fair return for it.
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