Using Data to Win Gold for U.S. Ski & Snowboard with Gus Kaeding

Mining Your Own Business Podcast

Joining Evan on the data science slopes is Gus Kaeding, Senior Manager of Data & Analytics at U.S. Ski & Snowboard. Gus shares how his background in professional skiing, coaching, and the U.S. Olympic Committee informs the work he does today. He discusses the types of challenges athletes use data to solve and the tech infrastructure for sharing insights with coaches. Gus also explains some of the challenges with data collection and how he envisions data collection in the future. Gus and Evan wrap up by discussing the future of the U.S. team. Tune in for an invigorating episode on sports analytics!

Key Takeaways

• How data benefits athletes and team development and creates champions
• How data insights are delivered to coaches and athletes
• Challenges in data collection and how new innovations are addressing them
• Insights into the future of the U.S. Ski & Snowboard team

Quotes

“It's about growing those sample sets - whether they are in the gym or at home, during recovery, or on the slopes - as much as we can. And solving for “how do you create those results?” whether good or bad, and incrementally improving those.” - Gus Kaeding
“Anytime you're talking about an analytics kind of project, whether it's in business or whether it's in an MBA program, buy-in's always tough and there's a number of different stakeholders you have to address. So, most of the projects that I work on are sourced from a question that comes from the coaches” - Gus Kaeding
“Now we really want to make sure we're scaling. And when we identify some of those [young] athletes, to support them in a way where they're bringing their friends, their community, and the sport along with them as well.” - Gus Kaeding

Featured in this episode

Evan Wimpey
Director of Analytics Strategy at Elder Research.
Company website: www.elderresearch.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/evan-wimpey-40469b47

Gus Kaeding
Senior Manager of Data & Analytics at U.S. Ski & Snowboard
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaedinggus/

Chapters
01:40 – Gus’s background and how he got into ski & snowboard data
03:49 – What types of data is collected for ski and snowboard?
06:23 – Video tracking for data collection: challenges and benefits
09:10 – How are analytics efforts prioritized?
13:38 – How are data insights delivered to coaches and athletes?
16:22 – Challenging conventional norms
20:03 – Does ski data change the way you ski?
22:47 – What’s one data question you aspire to answer?
27:12 – For the fans of U.S. Ski & Snowboard: what to look out for

Find more show notes, transcripts, & more episodes at:
https://www.elderresearch.com/resource/podcasts/