Project AIROW

How rowers want to use artificial intelligence

Lukas Reim and Julian Schöberl dream of the Olympics.

(Bild: GEPA pictures/Aleksandar Djorovic)

Artificial intelligence is playing an increasingly important role in people's lives. The Austrian Rowing Association also wants to make use of this technology. However, the app is not yet ready to support the Lukas Reim/Julian Schöberl duo in the Olympic qualifiers.

What do statisticians, mathematicians, sports scientists and rowers have in common? Together, they have launched the "AIROW" project in 2022. They want to use it to train artificial intelligence until, ideally, it can create individual training plans, provide information on individual recovery states and deliver recommended measures in the form of an app.

A lot of data is measured
At the University Sports Center Vienna, national coach Robert Sens and data scientist Nikolaus Hautsch want to get the athletes into top form - with the help of artificial intelligence. In future, this will monitor how effective training is and even predict competition times. The AI will then create individual training plans for each athlete. However, everything is still in its infancy at the moment - the focus is on collecting data. "I think it could be a cool thing," Salzburg's rowing ace Lukas Reim is convinced. All data is currently being measured. Sensors record training duration, heart rate, sleep times, oxygen saturation, skin temperature and blood pressure. Recording is nothing new in itself. But collecting them all and then linking them is. The aim is for the artificial intelligence to learn how different athletes react to training.

In the boat to Paris
The AI has not yet learned enough to help Reim (Ruderklub Möve) and partner Julian Schöberl qualify for the Olympics in Szeged (Hungary). But they still want to make it. "The chance is alive. It will certainly be difficult, but doable," says the lightweight rower. The duo must finish in the top two places. In addition, a possible appearance in Paris depends on the Austrian women's duo Altenhuber/Tiefenthalter. If both lightweight double sculls finish in first place, both ÖRV boats will qualify for Paris. If only one boat achieves first or second place, this boat automatically receives a starting place for Paris. If both lightweight double sculls finish in second place, the Austrian Rowing Association must select one boat.

Reim and Schöberl are putting all their eggs in one basket and have arrived earlier than the rest of the national team. "We have familiarized ourselves well with the course," says Reim.

On Thursday, they managed a courageous race in the preliminary heat. The ÖRV athletes finished third behind the competition from Ukraine and Belgium. "The double sculls are going well, the pace is there and they did really well against two world-class boats. Now it's on to the intermediate heat and then attack in the final," says national coach Sens. "We did everything we wanted to do in the preliminary heat. That was a run to clean up and then things will certainly go better tomorrow in the intermediate run when the machine is ready-to-go," says Lukas Reim. The intermediate heat for the final is scheduled for Friday at 9:40 am.