Sochi 2014: The Importance of Olympics and Event Metadata

With the Sochi, Russia, 2014 Winter Olympics finally upon us, 12 new and exciting events have been added to the television schedule.

As different competitions are continually expanded and developed for both the Winter and Summer Games, monitoring not just the sports, but all of the participants and locations involved becomes imperative.

Since 2012, FYI Television, Inc. has been a supplier of Olympics-related metadata and media content, including showcards, venue, mascot and athlete images and photographs, and detailed entity information that is updated real-time when medals are awarded. And it’s not just the competitors that are tracked, various commentators, talking heads and analysts are covered too.

Audiences are searching for more and more event-specific information nowadays, and this sort of data allows for additional knowledge discovery, whether it’s the Olympics, the Academy Awards or the PGA Tour.

Here is just some of the in-depth Sochi Winter Olympics data that we provide:

- 43 pictograms for all 15 Olympic event categories

- 113 different venue images for all 14 event locations

- 1,029 individual Olympic athlete profiles, with 8,370 
   unique biographical facts

- 123 profiles for anchors, analysts and commentators

-  27 showcards for 128 titles

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Here’s a special preview of some of the new and upcoming competitions.

Snowboarding

Men’s and Women’s Slopestyle

Jamie Anderson

Competitors traveled down a 655m track with rails and jumps, which they used to gain air and bust out tricks for scoring. Two-time U.S. Olympic gold medalist Shaun White was scheduled to participate in this event, and he described the course as “intimidating” in a February 4, 2014 AP interview, however after jamming his wrist he decided to direct his attention entirely to the halfpipe. Speed, height and trick difficulty had an impact on judging. Americans conquered both gender categories in the finals, with Utah's Sage Kotsenburg (93.50) and California's Jamie Anderson (95.25) taking home gold medals.

Snowboarding
Men’s and Women’s Parallel Slalom

Justin Reiter

Athletes will race down two similar side-by-side courses. Justin Reiter, known for sleeping in his Toyota Tundra during training sessions in Salt Lake City, is making his first Olympics appearance, and he hopes to perform well here after securing two fourth-place finishes at the World Cup and the silver medal at the 2013 FIS Snowboarding World Championships.

Skiing

Men’s and Women’s Slopestyle

Nick Goepper

Team USA’s Joss Christiansen and Nick Goepper hope to dominate the 565m course in this event, which will contain rails and jumps, just like the snowboarding one. Goepper stated that he thought the track was “a little rough … but overall it’s pretty sweet. It is just different.”

Skiing
Women’s Ski Jumping

Sarah Hendrickson

2014 is the first year that women will have the opportunity to compete in Olympic ski jumping, after a decade-long effort of trying to convince the International Olympic Committee. The U.S.’s three-woman crew, comprised of Jessica Jerome, Lindsey Van and Sarah Hendrickson, are primed to compete after assisting with lengthy court battles, but they should be prepared for Sara Takanashi from Japan, who is the world’s top female jumper.

Figure Skating

Team Event - Mixed

Ashley Wagner

      Twenty-four percent of respondents to a recent Associated Press-GfK poll, a majority, cited figure skating as their favorite Winter Olympics event, and this new category of competition could likely add to its popularity. Teams will incorporate a male, a female, a pair and an ice dance couple; each competitor will receive points for their routine, and the team with the highest amount of points earns the gold medal. While Russia succeeded in winning the gold, the U.S. managed to earn the bronze medal.

Luge 
Team Relay - Mixed

Matt Mortensen

Countries involved in this event will send men’s, women’s and mixed gender teams down Sochi’s 1,384m track in a relay race, and the sleds are expected to reach speeds up to 70-80mph. U.S. athletes Matt Mortensen, Chris Mazdzer, Kate Hansen and Preston Griffall finished second place at the Viessmann Luge World Cup this past December, and they hope to defeat Germany, the favorite, for the gold. Mortensen, who is a member of the U.S. Army World Class Athlete Program along with Griffall, said that he was “paralyzed by emotion” after learning he made the team.

We look forward to watching the American competitors achieve great victories, set new records, and of course, lead the nations in total medal count by the end of it all. At the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, the U.S. not only placed first with overall medals, but it also set a new record for the most medals, winning 37. Hopefully, we’ll do it again.

NBC, the official broadcaster, has additional sports coverage at their Olympic Talk website, and they’ll also be providing exclusive footage and highlights at NBCOlympics.com and on the NBC Sports Live Extra App.

Author: Brian Cameron

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