2023-06-13 22:17:01
“All podiums are decided on differences of less than 2% between athletes. We are here to win medals. ” Clément Massicot, sport scientist at the National Institute of Sport, Expertise and Performance (Insep), should allow French athletes to shine during the Parisian meeting in the summer of 2024. He talks to us about his role.
What does your job as a sports scientist consist of?
CLEMENT MASSICOT. It is not a very common profession in France and above all, we can all practice it in different ways. It will depend on the structure, the club or the federation for which we work. I, at Insep, am there to support the Olympic federations and meet their data needs.
What exactly are the needs?
My role consists of analyzing the competition, studying scientific articles, providing tables to visualize the differences with the best, but also collecting health data and training analyses.
How do you proceed?
I take data such as sleep, perception of muscle pain, motivation state, psychological state and data via watches like Garmin, Polar, also through apps and the Athlete 360 platform that we have set up at Insep. We analyze everything that can be. Depending on the results, the coaches may or may not adapt their sessions, do 10 out of 10 in intensity because the athlete is very well or, on the contrary, 6 out of 10 because he is tired.
It’s a new approach…
The National Sports Agency (ANS) asks us to target potentially medal-winning athletes, those who will play in the top 8 in Paris. Thus, we work with swimming, pentathlon, wrestling, track cycling or the French women’s basketball team. In some cases, we even manage to have data from the Tokyo Olympics in 2021.
We can thus profile an athlete and know exactly how he reacts. For example in triathlon, Vincent Luis only needs three days to be in top shape after a course at altitude when it takes 5 or 10 days for others. It changes everything in the way of approaching a competition and getting there.
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