Word: dartfish
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Switzerland-based Dartfish is perhaps the world's most successful Olympic-tech company, with training software, including Dartswim, that's used by athletes in more than 20 countries, including Germany, South Korea and Thailand. In the U.S., some two dozen Olympic sports use Dartfish. The technology helped athletes worldwide win 45 medals in the 2002 Winter Games, according to Victor Bergonzoli, general manager of the company's U.S. unit. "Once we used to repeat and explain the same thing over and over again," says Yeom Dong Chul, coach of South Korea's weight-lifting team, which has been using Dartfish...
...exactly does Dartfish operate? The software program imports digital video into a computer. Then an athlete or a coach conducts both qualitative and quantitative analyses. For example, Dartfish's SimulCam technology, which Kirk and her coach used at the pool, allows separate video clips to be superimposed on one another so swimmers and gymnasts can compare their current strokes and dismounts with their best and worst performances. SimulCam also adjusts images so athletes appear to be the same size, even if, for example, the camera was zoomed in on the first shot-putter but zoomed out on the second. Another...
...Dartfish rose to Olympic glory quicker than Marion Jones. In 1997 Serge Ayer, a graduate student at the Swiss Polytechnic Institute, and his professor Martin Vetterli developed the SimulCam blueprint. Ayer and his brother Jean-Marie, then a Swisscom executive and now CEO of Dartfish Europe, spent Sunday dinners discussing potential applications for SimulCam. They sensed an opportunity on television. Says Serge: "What we saw happening on TV during sport competitions, such as split screen and instant replay, wasn't good enough." Their idea was to layer the positions of two athletes at the same point...
Although television has given Dartfish invaluable exposure, it doesn't pay the bulk of the bills. Of the company's $5 million in 2003 sales, only 15%, or $750,000, came from television; athletic-training software accounted for the rest. The company says the Athens Olympics will generate only 8% to 10% of this year's $7.5 million in expected revenue. Professional teams (in the U.S., 10 baseball, basketball and football franchises use Dartfish), colleges, youth coaches and other sports markets supply most of the company's funds. In France golf pros have taken to Dartfish. In one British school...
...doubt Dartfish's value, but because of the perpetually crowded sports market, some question its long-term prospects. "The amateur athletes don't have much money to spend," says Leigh, who has also invested in sports-technology companies. "And the pros expect everything to be given to them. It's a tough row to hoe." Bergonzoli says the pros get no freebies from Dartfish and that downward pressure on tech costs will increase volume. The company, which grew 40% last year, broke even for the first time this past quarter. For a young tech firm like Dartfish, that's cause...