130 – Mounir Zok of The US Olympic Committee – The Secret Sauce of Sports Success

Aug 3, 2016

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Athletic technology and innovation …

Mounir Zok 2 Mounir Zok (bio), Director of Technology and Innovation for The US Olympic Committee (Team USA), joins Marc Raco, Rob Sanchez and Nataliya Makulova at The 2016 Smithers Apex WEAR Conference in Boston, MA.

Secret sauce, international influences, range of innovation

Mounir Zok 1 Zok describes his role as the person who sits down with athletes and coaches, helping them get as many medals as possible by helping to develop the secret sauce of sports success and closing the 1% gap. International differences in innovation, the impact of people from varying backgrounds and skills being at same table, true innovation and a wealth of knowledge, and the value of originating from Lebanon. Looking at the range of innovation, functional fibers, tracking, coaching, all technology, injectionable technology, environments, in bedrooms and gyms, analytics, and AI. Plus, applications for paralympic athletes.

Virtual reality, what become public, and three rules

With Olympics nearing, making sure the team has everything ready to execute plans. Helping Mounir Zok 3 with stress and pressure in advance, using virtual reality to recreate venues, simulated audio, press, lights, and pinpointing specific moments that require coaching. What becomes public vs. stays secret, three rules to the mission including assuring technology is humanized, technology must interact with athlete, (not the other way around), real time rewards. How applications of technology cannot expect athlete to alter training or performance.

Future Olympians, standardization, and superheroes

Technologies developed which have become mainstream, using data from Olympics to look at future. The important exploitation of the fact that the team is holding the best athletes in hand, create baseline for future generations, and the opportunity to be working with outlying talent that would normally be hard to standardize. Off the Grid Questions touch on war-torn Lebanon, Ironman, and superhero movies.