MIT Sports Lab researchers discuss applying AI to sports such as figure skating, whether AI systems could ever be used to judge Olympic events, and when we might see a skater land a quint.

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MIT researchers developed OOFSkate, an AI-powered optical tracking system that analyzes figure skating jumps using pose estimation from video to provide performance recommendations. The system tracks physical metrics like rotation speed and jump height, comparing them against elite athletes' data and predicting judging scores. New research is exploring whether AI evaluates aesthetic performance similarly to human judges by studying differences between expert, novice, and AI assessments of figure skating. The technology will be used during the 2026 Winter Olympics to help NBC explain complex scoring systems, and researchers believe a quintuple jump is physically possible within the next few years.

3 Questions: Using AI to help Olympic skaters land a quint