The 2024 Paris Olympics is already being hailed as groundbreaking in the use of artificial intelligence to protect athletes from online abuse and answer their questions quickly via an exclusive AthleteGPT service. But, as you will see in this edition of Tech Time Warp, since the start of the modern Games in 1896, the Olympics have always been on the cutting edge of technology:
- At the 1900 Paris Games, “chronophotography” was used to capture athletes’ movements in multiple film frames for analysis. These frames were then published by French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey in the journal
- One hundred years ago, also in Paris, the first Olympics radio broadcast took place. Without an international broadcasting standard, the transmission was primarily limited to France. During the Olympic marathon, scouts who were among the more than 1,000 journalists covering the Games reported back via telephone to a station at Colombes Stadium. Their reports were broadcast via amplifier to those in the stands.
- By the 1936 Games in Berlin, 2,500 radio broadcasts carried the action around the world in 28 languages. The 1936 Olympics also brought the first TV broadcasts—not to homes, but to specially equipped rooms outside the stadium.
- The 1948 London Games offered TV coverage up to 200 kilometers away. They also offered the first color Olympics broadcast took place in 1968.
- The 1964 Tokyo Games were known as the “Technology Olympics” for being the first Olympics to be broadcast around the world.
- The International Olympic Committee launched its first website in 1996.
- The 2004 Games in Athens were the first to be streamed.
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