By Katie Davis
B ayerische Motoren Werke or BMW is known to most as the ultimate driving machine, but after the success of the U.S. swim team at the recent Rio Summer Olympics they might be known as having the ultimate swimming technology. As the U.S. Olympic Swimming Team went for gold in Rio, who would have thought that a German car company would help them get to the podium. The U.S. Swim Team is using technology originally devel- oped for BWM’s autonomous driving systems to help swimmers analyze their water mechanics, form and tech- nique to improve their swimming performance. The same LED lights BMW uses in its cars to identify pedestrians and other vehicles are put on swimmers’ limbs to analyze different elements of kick and pull.” The LED-based software package helps Team USA coaches provide instant feedback to swimmers. The software, along with a new racing wheelchair BMW rolled out for the Rio Paralympics, are among the technology
initiatives BMW is showcasing at this year’s Games.
Rio was not the first Olympic Games to use BWM’s LED-based software to increase athletic performance. Although the current swimming analysis software was rolled out about a year ago, it followed the success of the BMW-designed two-man U.S. Olympic bobsled that helped the U.S. two-man bobsled team medal for the first time in 62 years at the Sochi 2014 Winter Games. Athletic performance comes at a price and adapting the technology used in BMW’s cars for Olympians ends up costing about the same as a few 30-second prime- time television spots -- about $300,000 to $600,000 each, said Trudy Hardy, BMW’s vice president of mar- keting for North America.
But we believe that is a small price to pay for the chance to showcase BMW’s engineering capacity on and off the road.
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DECEMBER 2016 • SPOTLIGHT ON BUSINESS
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