Technology helps female athletes achieve ‘unthinkable’ results

Sports science research has traditionally ignored female athletes but technology is helping to redress the balance with the result that many are now achieving results that were previously unthinkable, according to Dr Brian Moore, founder and chief executive of Orreco.

Speaking on the fringes of the Web Summit in Lisbon, Dr Moore, whose company provides sports science and data-led tools for professional sports teams and athletes, including Newcastle United, Chelsea FC Women and the Dallas Mavericks, said women athletes were beginning to see significant gains in their performance now that tech is being used to help them with their training and recovery.

His view was echoed by four-time US Olympian Allison Schmitt, who has been using Orreco's solutions for the past two years.

Revolutionary

Ms Schmitt, winner of 10 Olympic medals after taking a silver in Tokyo earlier this year, said using the tools developed by Orreco has been revolutionary.

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“I’ve learned things about myself as a female that I never knew. When it comes to sports, the tendency has been to treat women as though they were like little boys but this is slowly changing as we realise just how important it is to focus on women separately,” she told The Irish Times.

“Honestly, until I was introduced to the work that Orreco are doing, I had no idea just how impactful hormones are for example,” Ms Schmitt added.

Galway-based Orreco, which was founded in 2010, has developed a female-focused performance platform called FitrWoman that has the ability to track periods and symptoms, along with added guidance for training and nutrition based around the menstrual cycle.

The platform has been used by the US Women’s World Cup soccer team among others.

Dr Moore, who is due to address the Web Summit from the main stage on the topic with Ms Schmitt on Wednesday, said, traditionally, women have been ignored by sports science with research focused on male athletes alone. This was also the situation in many other fields, he said.

Studies

“Women haven’t been included in research studies, both in sports and in wider areas and that translates into every aspect of our lives, including in areas such as seatbelt design and clinical trials [of medicines].

“When it comes to sport in particular, women’s physiology has been so overlooked that there are monstrous gains to be made in terms of performance when you do start paying attention to it,” he said.

Ms Schmitt agreed. She said she’d struggled in the months prior to the Tokyo Olympics and cut back on training as she sought to uncover what her performance issues were. Rather than just training through the difficulties as is the traditional way to cope with issues, she used Orreco’s tool to look at things more broadly.

“Women are superheroes with superpowers that are different from those of men but it has been easy to overlook this. I think if sportswomen can embrace those superpowers now then who know what we might achieve,” she said.

Orreco uses machine learning and data analytics to monitor the health of sportspeople, helping to accelerate recovery and prolong careers.

The company secured $3.6 million (€3.1 million) earlier this year in a funding round led by True Ventures, an early investor in both Fitbit and Peloton.

Other backers include golfers Graeme McDowelll and Pádraig Harrington, as well as former NBA player Joe Dumars, Intercom co-founder Des Traynor, former Aryzta chief executive Kevin Toland and ex-Glanbia managing director John Moloney.

It has worked with over 35 Olympic medalists since the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney and published more than 300 peer-reviewed papers.

Among its earliest supporters was Irish runner Sonia O'Sullivan, who credits the company's work on analysing athletes' blood profiles for helping her bounce back and win a silver medal at the Sydney Olympics after she had hit a wall in training.