From 6-22 February, the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy will characteristic not simply the world’s prime winter athletes but additionally a few of the most superior sports activities applied sciences immediately. On the first Cortina Olympics in 1956, the Swiss firm Omega—primarily based in Biel/Bienne—launched digital ski beginning gates and launched the primary automated timing tech of its form.
At this yr’s Olympics, Swiss Timing, sister firm to Omega beneath the dad or mum Swatch Group, unveils a brand new era of motion analysis and computer vision know-how. The brand new applied sciences on provide embody photofinish cameras that seize as much as 40,000 photographs per second.
“We work very carefully with athletes,” says Swiss Timing CEO Alain Zobrist, who has overseen Olympic timekeeping for the reason that winter games of 2006 in Torino “They’re the first clients of our know-how and companies, and they should perceive how our methods work with a view to belief them.”
Utilizing high-resolution cameras and AI algorithms tuned to skaters’ routines, Milan-Cortina Olympic officers anticipate new determine skating tech to be a key spotlight of the video games. Omega
Determine Skating Tech Completes the Rotation
Figure skating, the Winter Olympics’ greatest TV draw, is receiving a considerable improve at Milano Cortina 2026.
Fourteen 8K resolution cameras positioned across the rink will seize each skater’s motion. “We use proprietary software program to interpret the pictures and visualize athlete motion in a 3D mannequin,” says Zobrist. “AI processes the info so we will observe trajectory, place, and motion throughout all three axes—X, Y, and Z”.
The system measures leap heights, air occasions, and touchdown speeds in actual time, producing warmth maps and graphic overlays that break down every program—all instantaneously. “The time it takes for us to measure the info, till we present a matrix on TV with a graphic, this entire chain must take lower than 1/10 of a second,” Zobrist says.
A spread of various AI models helps the broadcasters and commentators course of every skater’s each transfer on the ice.
“There may be an AI that helps our computer vision system do pose estimation,” he says. “So we have now a digicam that’s filming what is going on, and an AI that helps the digicam perceive what it’s taking a look at. After which there’s a second sort of AI, which is extra much like a big language mannequin that is sensible of the info that we gather”.
Among the many options Swiss Timing’s new methods present is blade angle detection, which provides judges exact technical knowledge to enhance their technical and aesthetic selections. Zobrist says future variations will even decide whether or not a given rotation is full, in order that “If the rotation is 355 levels, there’s going to be a deduction,” he says.
This builds on know-how Omega unveiled on the 2024 Paris Olympics for diving, the place cameras measured distances between a diver’s head and the board to assist judges assess factors and penalties to be awarded.
On the 2026 Winter Olympics, ski leaping will characteristic each camera-based and sensor-based applied sciences to make the aerial expertise extra fast and real-time. Omega
Ski Leaping Tech Finds Make-or-Break Moments
In contrast to determine skating’s camera-based method, ski jumping additionally depends on bodily sensors.
“In ski leaping, we use a small, light-weight sensor hooked up to every ski, one sensor per ski, not on the athlete’s physique,” Zobrist says. The sensors are light-weight and broadcast knowledge on a skier’s pace, acceleration, and positioning within the air. The know-how additionally correlates efficiency knowledge with wind circumstances, revealing environmental components’ affect on every leap.
Excessive-speed cameras additionally observe every ski jumper. Then, a stroboscopic digicam offers physique place time-lapses all through the leap.
“The primary 20 to 30 meters after takeoff are essential as athletes transfer right into a V place and lean ahead,” Zobrist says. “And each the timing and precision of this motion strongly affect efficiency.”
The system reveals biomechanical traits in actual time, he provides, exhibiting how athletes place their our bodies throughout each second of the takeoff course of. The commonest mistake in flight place, over-rotation or under-rotation, can now be detailed and identified with precision on each leap.
Bobsleigh: Pushing the Line on the Photograph End
This yr’s Olympics will even characteristic a “digital photograph end,” offering comparability photographs of when completely different sleds cross the end line over earlier runs.
Omega’s cameras will present digital photograph finishes on the 2026 Winter Olympics. Omega
“We just about construct a photograph end that reveals completely different sleds from completely different runs on a single visible reference,” says Zobrist.
After every run, composite photographs present the margins separating performances. Nonetheless, extra tried-and-true know-how nonetheless generates official outcomes. A Swiss Timing rating, he says, nonetheless comes courtesy of photoelectric cells, units that emit gentle beams throughout the end line and cease the clock when damaged. The corporate affords its digital photograph end, in contrast, as a visualization instrument for spectators and commentators.
In bobsleigh, as in each timed Winter Olympic occasion, the road between triumph and heartbreak is typically measured in milliseconds and even shorter time intervals nonetheless. Such precision will, Zobrist says, stem from Omega’s Quantum Timer.
“We are able to measure time to the millionth of a second, so 6 digits after the comma, with a deviation of about 23 nanoseconds over 24 hours,” Zobrist defined. “These units are continuously calibrated and used throughout all timed sports activities.”
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