She’s a UIC college professor, a media producer and U.S. Figure Skating’s Sports Sciences Manager, and her job is to use technology to help Team USA athletes.
Lindsay Hannigan makes sure those athletes train better, recover faster and know when they’ve reached their limit, and she’s doing it with a sensor smaller than an Apple Watch.
Long before athletes take the Olympic ice, their twists, turns and jumps have all been tracked and analyzed on an app with Hannigan’s help. She collects training data using a compact sensor that clips onto an athlete’s hip, tracking measurements like pelvis rotation, the degree of a bend in the hip and the height of their jumps.
“We’re on the forefront of how we can incorporate technology into performance,” said Hannigan.
Hannigan says she’s often reviewing the numbers well into the night.
“I am doing this at 11 o’clock at night, pulling those spreadsheets, looking to see how many jumps they’ve done,” said Hannigan.
The goal is to replace guesswork with hard data. The sensor data helps the team make informed decisions about when a skater needs to ease up or when they can push harder.
“We’re trying to use data-driven decision making as opposed to just how you’re overall feeling about your workload for that day,” said Hannigan.
So, does technology give Team USA an advantage? Hannigan says most countries are exploring tech-driven training, but adoption is still limited. She noted that the only other team she’s aware of using technology consistently in training is Team Japan.
Hannigan, a former ice skater herself, says the algorithm behind the system took two years to perfect. Her work, along with a team of dietitians, coaches and psychologists, all help Team USA shine when it matters most.
“As viewers, you only get to see their few performances…six minutes, oftentimes, over the course of the games,” said Hannigan. “But I’ve been privileged to watch the decades, oftentimes, of training and heartbreak on the backend that have led to that moment.”
While other sports have their own data-tracking devices, Hannigan said this specific sensor is unique to U.S. Figure Skating, and only improving as time goes on.
