UK Sport funding: Data management firm to aid body's investment decisions

UK Sport has inked an initial two-year deal with data management firm CGI to aid its decision-making on funding in the run-up to the 2020 Olympics.

The elite sports governing body will use CGI’s ability to process and analyse data to make judgements about the performance of sports “underpinned by more detailed information”.

UK Sport’s Sport Intelligence Team will work with CGI’s Digital Transformation Team on the project which will compare and contrast sports’ and athletes’ results “quickly and efficiently”.

The body will then make key decisions about which sports will be funded and how much they will receive based on projections of success for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, as well as next year’s Olympics in Rio and the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

An announcement about the funding cycle for the 2020 Games will take place in December 2016.

Sports governing bodies will be able to submit data to UK Sport, although they will not be able to send their own results straight to CGI. UK Sport will also use the data and analytics collected by its third party partners for CGI to analyse.

“In order for us to maintain our competitive advantage on the world stage, we need to be able to make smart, well-informed decisions on how and where to invest for the greatest performance impact,” said director of performance at UK Sport, Simon Timson.

CGI’s vice president of Digital Transformation, Craig Wallace, added: “Insight derived from information analytics and sports data science can help make the difference between winning gold or not at the highest level, where the margins are extremely tight. Working with UK Sport we have been able to deliver digital solutions that will support UK Sport in creating a competitive advantage in this area.”