Wireless sensors aim to boost ski-jump technique with instant feedback

VIDEO SHOWS: SKI JUMPING / DRONE SHOTS OF SKI JUMPING / SKI JUMPERS TRAINING / SCIENTISTS WITH SENSORS AND LOOKING AT DATA / INTERVIEW WITH SCIENTIST, A SKI JUMPER AND A COACH SHOWS: KANDERSTEG, SWITZERLAND (FILE – DEC 2025) (ETH Zurich – Must courtesy ETH Zurich) 1. SKI JUMPER ON IN-RUN 2. SKI JUMPER (MUTE) 3. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR CHRISTOPH LEITNER, ETH ZURICH, SAYING:     "We're here in Kandersteg today and we are with the training with the Swiss-Ski Junior team. And we have equipped one of their athletes with our sensors. And we are really eager to understand and see what the sensor data will show, particularly when the athlete arrives at the jumping table. You know, this is a very short period of time, it's like 300 milliseconds. But getting a shot and the detail into the centre of mass, for example, will definitely bring more information not only for us engineers, but also for the coaches and eventually, hopefully for the athlete, having the coaches as a filter to optimize their technique.” 4. VARIOUS DRONE SHOTS OF SKI JUMPING (MUTE) 5. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR CHRISTOPH LEITNER, ETH ZURICH, SAYING:     "We have here three sensors that we integrate into ski jumpers or into athletes, or that we apply on athletes, to get a better impression on their movement quality and to improve the learning speed. Because imagine ski jumping is a non-cyclic sport, so a jump lasts maybe 10 to 15 seconds. And you can imagine as a ski jumper, the number of jumps in your lifetime is basically limited. So what we want to do, we want to really improve and accelerate the learning speed in ski jumping." 6. SENSORS ON THE LEGS OF SKI JUMPER MAURO IMHOF 7. VARIOUS OF IMHOF AND TEAM MATES PREPARING TO JUMP 8. DRONE SHOT OF IMHOF JUMPING 9. (SOUNDBITE) (German) SKI JUMPER MAURO IMHOF, SAYING:     "My name is Mauro Imhof. Today we are in Kandersteg. In a normal training session, we do our six jumps and work on improving specific aspects we are currently focusing on. Today was a bit special because we tested a new technology. It measures how the pressure is distributed on the foot – whether you are standing more towards the front or the back – and it also shows the speed and height during the flight. Today was the first time we tested it. We have sensors in the goggles as well as in the left and right boots. This technology can reveal things that you cannot see with the naked eye or in video footage, which makes analysing everything very interesting." 10. STILL PHOTOGRAPH OF GOGGLES WITH SENSOR (MUTE) 11. STILL PHOTOGRAPH OF IMHOF WEARING THE GOGGLES WITH SENSOR (MUTE) 12. VARIOUS STILL PHOTOGRAPHS OF LEG SENSOR (MUTE) 13. DR CHRISTOPH LEITNER, WORKING ON SENSORS (MUTE) 14. VARIOUS OF LEITNER, WORKING ON SENSORS (MUTE) 15. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR CHRISTOPH LEITNER, ETH ZURICH, SAYING:     "Creating feedback for an athlete you need to really process the data, process this complex data, highly efficient and then give back a very simple information in a latency of roughly below one millisecond. And this is not trivial technologically-wise. And on the other hand, we have the feedback to the coach, which is a bit more latent. So we were speaking about maybe seconds or even minutes, but the data also needs to be processed, annotated, so the coach kind of already gets a pre-filtered data that he understands. It's very difficult to work only with purely raw data that comes along at high speeds." 16. VARIOUS OF RESEARCHER REVIEWING DATA WITH A TEAM COACH  17. (SOUNDBITE) (English) EVELYN INSAM, SWISS-SKI JUNIOR TEAM COACH, SAYING: The new technology is definitely helping us as coaches because we have concrete data about the jumps and it's going to help us develop the jumps further." 18. EVELYN INSAM AND COLLEAGUE TRAINING YOUNG SKI JUMPER 19. VARIOUS DRONE SHOTS OF SKI JUMPING (MUTE) 20. (SOUNDBITE) (English) DR CHRISTOPH LEITNER, ETH ZURICH, SAYING:     "For the future I see a hyper-connected athlete, an athlete that has basically sensors everywhere, tiny nodes that are super efficient and that capture the complexity of movement. And I hope to contribute with this system for the development of the ski jumpers of Swiss-Ski and hopefully for other Alpine sports or even summer sports. I can imagine to apply the sensors for running, swimming, any kinds of sports." 21. VARIOUS OF SKI JUMPING IN SLOW MOTION (MUTE) STORY:     A new wireless sensor system aims to give ski jumping coaches more immediate data on technique, as Switzerland's national team tests whether it can sharpen training feedback and keep their athletes airborne for longer.     The developers, from ETH Zurich, worked with Swiss-Ski, Switzerland’s national junior ski team – younger athletes who may step in if any of the Olympic team are forced to drop out.     Amongst them was Swiss junior ski jumper, Mauro Imhof, who was fitted with sensors in his boots and goggles with others strapped to his legs, to measures take-off forces and his centre of gravity while in flight.     "We are really eager to understand and see what the sensor data will show, particularly when the athlete arrives at the jumping table," said lead researcher, Dr Christoph Leitner, an electrical engineer who specialises in biophysics and sports medicine.     "Getting a shot and the detail into the centre of mass, for example, will definitely bring more information not only for us engineers, but also for the coaches and eventually, hopefully for the athlete."     The technology measures foot pressure at three specific points within the ski boot, transmitting that data to the coach.     The system's machine learning model can also give immediate feedback to the athlete through a vibration motor in their boot, accelerating motor learning and enhancing jump quality.     "We have here three sensors that we integrate into ski jumpers or into athletes, or that we apply on athletes, to get a better impression on their movement quality and to improve the learning speed. Because imagine ski jumping is a non-cyclic sport, so a jump lasts maybe 10 to 15 seconds. And you can imagine as a ski jumper, the number of jumps in your lifetime is basically limited. So what we want to do, we want to really improve and accelerate the learning speed in ski jumping," Leitner said.     The data could help coaches pinpoint areas where an athlete needs to adjust their posture and dynamics, ultimately improving their take-off efficiency—a key factor in securing competitive success.     The Milano Cortina Winter Olympics will kick off in Milan, Italy with an opening ceremony at the San Siro stadium, home to AC Milan and Inter Milan football clubs, on February 6. The Games run to February 23. (Production: Stuart McDill)

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