Ep. 15 — This sports startup is transforming the world of track and field data analytics for athletes, coaches, and fans / Chris Williams, Founder, and CEO, Zelos.
Jul 14, 2021•33 min•Ep 15•Transcript available on Metacast Episode description
For decades, like in many other sports, track and field athletes and coaches have been stymied by their inability to easily use analytics to help athletes reach their highest potential, with their performance data trapped largely in paper silos.
In the lead-up to the Tokyo Summer Olympics, Seattle-based startup Zelos has integrated roughly 20 million track and field records dating back 50 years, into its data analytics platform to generate powerful, predictive insights into the world’s oldest and most popular sport.
COVID-19 has changed all aspects of life, work, and careers, especially for athletes who haven’t been able to travel, train, and perform at their peak. The impact of the crisis will be acutely felt at the Olympics this week (rescheduled from last Summer because of COVID) as these athletes learn whether their can-do attitudes and flexible, often improvised training over the past year due to the pandemic, will affect their performance as they take their places among their peers to compete for those hard-fought medals.
The pandemic also has forced sports startups to adapt along with these athletes and to become nimble in challenging times as the pandemic shut down sporting events around the globe.
I’m joined by Chris Williams, founder, and CEO of Zelos to talk about his journey building Zelos through the pandemic and how it’s made him and his startup more resilient and adaptive.
Williams is a former pole vaulter and hurdler at the University of Washington. And he frequently writes and speaks about his experience as a former NCAA athlete and a data engineer. I should add by of disclosure that I’m on Zelos’s advisory board.
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Chitra Ragavan:
COVID-19 has changed all aspects of life, work, and careers, especially for athletes who haven't been able to travel, train and perform at their peak. The impact of the crisis will be acutely felt at the Tokyo Summer Olympics this week, rescheduled from last summer because of COVID. As these athletes learn what their can-do attitudes and flexible, often improvised training over the past year due to the pandemic will affect their performance as they take their places among their peers to compete for those hard-fought medals. Hello, everyone. I'm Chitra Ragavan and this is Techtopia. The pandemic also has forced sports startups to adapt along with these athletes to become nimble in challenging times as the pandemic shut down sporting events around the globe. I'm joined now by Chris Williams, founder and CEO of the Seattle-based sports data analytics startup, Zelos, which is taking track and field analytics to a whole new level for athletes, coaches, and fans.
Chitra Ragavan:
Williams is a formal pole vaulter and hurdler at the University of Washington. And he frequently writes and speaks about his experience as a former NCAA athlete and a data engineer. And I should add by way of disclosure that I'm on Zelos' advisory board. Chris, welcome to Techtopia.
Chris Williams:
Thank you Chitra. It's great to be here.
Chitra Ragavan:
So tell us a little bit about yourself and how you became a pole vaulter and hurdler, and what drew you to the sport.
Chris Williams:
Yeah, so to know me is, you're relative to know my family and I come from a track and field family. So my sister ran track and field. My father was a hurdler as well. Both of my cousins, plenty of aunts and uncles competed in the sport. I would go to their meets, they would come to my own, and growing up, my biggest sports idol was my sister. And so I would go to all of her track meets and I'd follow not just her, but all of her competitors too. And from the hours I spent at these track meets, I grew an affinity to it. And one day my dad said, okay son, know you played a few sports, but now's the time to really think of something to stick with and you want to do throughout your high school career.
Chris Williams:
So for me,
