ICT in Olympics The Olympic Games is the largest international sporting event in the world and is held every

four years in summer and winter (The Olympic Museum, 2007). The games forms part of the wider Olympic movement to promote sport whilst linking it to education and culture, run by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The first games was held in Athens in 1896 with 245 participants from 14 different countries. Today, 51 games later, the London Olympics in 2012 is expected to host 14,500 athletes from over 200 nations with approximately 10 million tickets sold and hundreds of millions viewing remotely. This is only made possible through the use of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). The use of ICT in the Olympics is widespread and one could argue there is no aspect of the games which is not supported by ICT. ICT s application stretches from back office support systems for example scheduling of volunteers and staff, selling tickets, to a variety of front office, customer facing services such as media coverage of the live games and creating the spectacular opening ceremony, all of which wereonly made possible with the use of ICT. Such technology not only benefits the organizers, it was also benefits employees, viewers (both remotely and at the games) and the athletes. As technology advances, new capabilities will bring not only greater convenience, but also higher standards at a lower cost. For the purpose of this live case the following document to support the presentation will focus on the role of ICT in the following areas of the games: y y y y y Games Management Systems Information Diffusion Systems including capturing athletes performance results and cascading commentator information Communication and broadcasting Information security of IT infrastructure from external network threats Installation and Testing if ICT infrastructure

Whilst taking into consideration a range of games starting from Atlanta in 1996 to London in 2012, this document will focus in particular on Athens, Beijing, Vancouver and London. For the London Olympic Games an estimated 500 million GBP is going to be spent on technology to support the10 billion pound event. (UK: POSTnote 346 Dec 2009) The challenges that face the games relate more to the scale and complexity of the event rather than use of innovative technologies. Although new technologies such as the Digital Cloud devised by the Senseable City Lab at MIT (CNET News) for the 2012 London games will be showcased. For the London games technology that is commercially available and already proven to be reliable from the master systems integration partner, Atos Origin will be used. Atos Origin have been the worldwide partner for Information Technology to the Olympic games since the Athens games in 2004 (Business Wire, March 16, 2004) responsible for business consulting, international systems integration and the provision of managed IT operations throughout the games. They will take the lead ICT partner for the games managing multiple sub contractors or partners such as BT as the telecoms provider for London and Bell

for Vancouver. Other key challenges include management of radio spectrum, ensuring the Games are not vulnerable to physical or electronic attack and minimizing emissions from ICT used at the Games. Games Management Systems (GMS) The GMS is split into seven key areas(Boris Sakac, 2008, Atos Origin, 2010) and integrated with the Information Diffusion Systems (IDS) using an integrated Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) and a robust IT Security system to provide the necessary levels of ICT to support the successful delivery of the Olympic Games. The GMS includes: y Sport entries and qualification This collects and manages official entries of all athletes eligible to take part in the games. The purpose it to ensure that only eligible athletes are formally entered to participate and that each individual is qualified in accordance with the rules of International Sport Federations. y Medical Encounters Provides statistics and reports on medical incidents to the IOC during the games. y Arrival and departure Coordinates all travel information (arrival, departure, accommodation etc.) of the Olympic family i.e. not just the athletes but also the media and officials ensuring the correct people are available to meet and guide the respective personnel. y Accreditation Manages the overall access of different levels of personnel into the games. Identifies the accredited participants, handles registration assigning the correct access rights and privileges for the games providing access control information in the form of ID badges for example. y Workforce management System to manage all games staff and volunteers from the manpower planning and interview process through to training volunteers, ordering uniforms etc. y Volunteer portal Responsible for the coordination of volunteer registration, approval, respective applications and specific training not covered within workforce management. y Transportation system Transportation system computerized support is responsible for all planning and scheduling of transport services (limo s, shuttles, taxi s)for athletes, families and other dignitary.

Information Diffusion System (IDS) This includes six main areas of functionality: y On Venue Results One of the most critical aspects of the Games IT support provides all the results during and at the end of each game (rate of speed, elapsed time, ranking and score). These are collected on a real time basis and distributed to scoreboards, commentators, TV etc. All OVR systems are connected through the internal Olympic Games communications network to servers that act as the central repository for Games information. Omega is the sub partner to provide the On Venue Results system currently. y Commentator Information Provides the results to the onsite broadcast locations in a fraction of a second and almost simultaneously to commentators themselves. y Olympic Family Intranet Provides all information on the games (such as schedules, weather etc.) to the athletes, media and games officials. Both fixed and remote access to the intranet is available. y Print Distribution Prints all Games information available to the Olympic family stakeholders. y Olympic Data Feed Allows all competition data to be made available in the format required to world news/ press agencies.

Internet Data Feed Distributes the results information from the intranet and commentator information system to the official Olympics website, broadcasters and other internet customers

The Services Orientated Architecture (SOA) is the ICT blue print that integrates all the different applications described above, ensuring that the correct information and data is made available between the different applications on a real time basis.

Fig: Systems Overview (Boris Sakac, 2008)

Communications and Broadcasting Technological challenges range from ensuring that every event is available to viewers on-demand, to ensuring that the emergency services radio network can function reliably. This is heavily dependent on the GMS and the IDS. In Beijing Olympic Games, many viewers were able to watch live High definition (HD) broadcasts on their laptops, thanks to the initiative between Legend Silicon, Intel and China s Aigo. Many mobile consumer electronic devices were designed for HDTV, including a small USB Dongle DTTB receiver, allowed viewers to watch HDTV on their laptops, anywhere at any time(Commercial Doctor Ltd, 2008) In the London Olympics 2012, work is underway to install 165,000 fixed telephones, 80,000 fixed and 1,000 wireless internet points, to serve 94 venues across the UK, connected with over 4,500 km of cabling to enable adequate voice and data communications. LOCOG is coordinating design and installation of the ICT infrastructure. BT willinstall it and ATOS Origin responsible for systems integration whilst Acer isproviding computing equipment.BT has compared the task to installing a whole new town s worth of telecommunications infrastructure in just over three year . (UK: POSTnote 346 Dec 2009)

This infrastructure will play a key part to running the events and reporting the results via a range of channels from scoreboards to TV graphics and official websites. An additional network will be allocatedfor all other aspects of organizing including supporting the Olympic Family intranet with broadband and wireless internet access mentioned above. London Olympics has been described as the first 100% digital Games . UK viewers would be able to watch live and on demand coverage over a digital network. BBC intends to make available all 4,500 hours of footage live and on-demand. In comparison, at the Sydney 2000 Olympics, only 250 out of 4,000 hours of footage was shown on terrestrial TV. Group of architects has teamed up with Google to propose a digital cloud concept.Project The Cloud will be both a monument for people to visit and digital display of real-time data. It is planned to be a 3D display above London and will broadcastkey Olympic moments. (Rosalie Marshall, Dec 2009, CNET News),

Information Security Protecting the Olympic ICT systems from network threats, internally and externally, (in the form of hackers and virus s) requires constant vigilance over security infrastructure and critical information assets. Many industry regulations require organizations to monitor its security environment, server logs and other information assets to ensure integrity of these systems. Serious and Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) and LOCOG for the London Games to combat cyber security with real-time monitoring and analysis across virtually any security technology or critical information asset such as firewalls, network intrusion prevention and detection systems, and servers(UK: POSTnote 346 Dec 2009& 271 Oct 2006). In addition Atos Origin have taken measures including separating the Games network from the internet, segmenting the security into many IT security domains, ensuring strict configuration management and ensuring intrusion detection systems are in place (Atos Origin, 2010). Although there have been attempts to breach the Games security few have succeeded. Only 20 out of 5 million security alerts in the 2006 Torino winter games were considered critical and none of those affected the running of the Games.

Installation and testing of ICT Infrastructure Software for computer systems is a combination of standard operating systems, data bases and monitoring packages combined with the development of propriety software solutions developed by companies thatare partners ofthe IOC, such as Atos Origin and Bell (for the Vancouver Winter Games 2010).

Software development usually starts 3 5 years before the Games and be ready to be implemented at test events that are organized a year before the Games. Most complex tasks are testing and rehearsals. Specialized teams integrate programs into Games configuration and test integrated modules using hundreds of previously prepared scenarios (Boris Sakac, 2008). Designers of computer network supporting vital functions take considerable care about several aspects that are collectively known as Business Continuity . Aspects include: y Redundancy of equipment, network infrastructures, systems and applications assuring that there are no single points of failure Back-up and restore functionality allowing quick restart of processing from some point in time when systems stored the content of databases, and using the log of all transactions after that Disaster and recovery solutions: partial or complete networks can be restarted from another location in the case of complete failure or catastrophic disaster of the primary systems.

Two embarrassing computer glitches hit the opening day of London Olympics ticket sales, with thousands of sports fans unable to enter the ballot due to problems with online payment system. In Beijing Olympics a similar computer crashmarred domestic ticket launch and later Chinese authorities struggled to meet high demand for tickets as the demand made the process slow and cumbersome(Loretta Chao, 2008).

Future Challenges By accurately analyzing user s requirements, future organizers can learn a lot about the design and implementation of computer systems at future Olympic Games. There are lots of other barriers and obstacles preventing Olympic Games organizers from using some of the new developments in technology. The first is due to a complex mixture of budget, marketing and legal constraints. For some of the new technologies it is difficult to justify their temporary installation, or the investments in required infrastructure are too highwithout any end-user after the Games. Secondly, people need some time to become familiar with new technologies and solutions. With further improvement in computer literacy of users together with new developments in computer and telecommunication would allow future Olympic Games organizers to improve the level of computer services.

References:

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