Cycling-Yates wins Giro d'Italia title for second Grand Tour victory
Cycling - Giro d'Italia - Stage 21 - Rome to Rome - Italy - June 1, 2025 Team Visma | Lease a Bike's Simon Yates celebrates after crossing the line to win the Giro d'Italia REUTERS/Jennifer Lorenzini
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
The Star
2 hours ago
- The Star
'The Beautiful Game' falls for AI's charms
Osterreicher says AI can provide data on aspects of football that humans cannot, such as acceleration, passing lanes, heat maps and zones of control. — Reuters PARIS: Sport has been unable to resist the surge of artificial intelligence and the biggest one of them all, football, is benefitting from data that AI can supply and the human eye cannot. Warsaw-based Vision, which says it is unique in gathering data by using AI, has two immediate goals – women's football and re-igniting Generation Z's interest in watching sports, their co-founder Pawel Osterreicher told AFP. The company – which numbers the South American football body CONMEBOL and their Central American counterparts CONCACAF among their clients– are able to capture data from matches from just a single camera angle. This makes gathering data much cheaper, as players do not need to wear any technology, and there is no need for multiple cameras to capture the data, thanks to AI. Vision's programme – which was used at last year's Copa America – was recently awarded Fifa certification. Osterreicher says AI can provide data on aspects of football that humans cannot, such as acceleration, passing lanes, heat maps and zones of control. He said the data can help the 'Goliaths' as well as the 'Davids', just as it did by assisting in second-tier side Wisla Krakow's giantkilling exploits on their way to lifting the Polish Cup in 2024. However, despite this run of success the 36-year-old says he and his colleagues are not aiming for the men's World Cup or this year's men's World Club Cup. Instead they are targeting covering the inaugural women's World Club Cup in 2028, which fits in nicely with another of their aims, to halt the haemorrhage of Generation Z –people born from 1997 to 2012 – watching sports. "What we see right now in the sports market in general is that women's sport grows at a much faster pace," he said. "Of course, from a lower base, but a much faster pace than men's sport. "You can argue that men's is saturated. But one of the best investment opportunities and development opportunities in sports are currently women's franchises, women's sport and all the media around it." 'More with less' Osterreicher says this could be a way to reboot the interest of younger viewers "who are flocking away". The young "expect to get excited immediately... I have five seconds and if not, I'm swiping away. "So women's sport is also potentially an opportunity for sport to attract younger audiences because maybe it's just too boring just to watch all the same setups, all the same guys," he said. "So lots of investment is being directed in women's sports and from our perspective as well. "We're agnostic. Human is a human. We capture data on humans, not on particular genders. "But definitely, more and more customers are asking us to just cover women's leagues." Osterreicher – who along with his colleagues set up the company five years ago – says he is a "realist", adding not everyone should use the technology as it is a "complex thing, it requires certain resources." Nevertheless Wisla's cup victory showed that you "can do more with less". "You can have a smaller team wisely using technology and then beating the big guys," he said. He added, though, that it is not a "silver bullet" as human frailties can come into play. "A player might have had a row with his wife and be off his game," he said. While this technology is already tried and tested, Osterreicher and his team are months away from dealing another card to try and claw back the young audience, whose loyalty has switched to TikTok, Netflix and other platforms. "The way for sports to address it is to create content which is much more to their liking," he said. "So you can recreate a game in 3D, which is what we are planning to do. "So imagine a legendary goal being scored, or any goal being scored, and you switch to a replay from player perspective. "So we are potentially entering the world where sport needs to reinvent itself a little bit, change the way it's being served, in order to not lose those people to TikToks and the video games and mobile games of the world." – AFP
The Star
7 hours ago
- The Star
Soccer-Spain v France not a Ballon d'Or decider, says Yamal
Soccer Football - LaLiga - FC Barcelona v Villarreal - Estadi Olimpic Lluis Companys, Barcelona, Spain - May 18, 2025 FC Barcelona's Lamine Yamal celebrates scoring their first goal REUTERS/Albert Gea TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY (Reuters) -Spain's Barcelona striker Lamine Yamal has said the Ballon d'Or award won't be decided by performances on Thursday when he and France's Paris St Germain forward Ousmane Dembele take part in the Nations League Final Four. Spain and France meet in Stuttgart for a place in the final, with the winners facing either Germany or Portugal who play in the other semi-final on Wednesday. Yamal and Dembele have been crucial for club and country this season and the prestigious golden ball trophy could end up with one of them in September during the ceremony in Paris. But the Barca striker challenged a journalist who asked whether Thursday's clash would be decisive for the voting. "If you had to give the Ballon d'Or, who would you give it to - the best player of the year or the one who wins on Thursday?" Yamal told Spanish broadcaster Cadena COPE on Monday. "I'm confident we'll win on Thursday, but whether we win or not, I'd vote for the player of the year because if something happens to me or Dembele on Thursday, who do you vote for? One who plays on Sunday? "I would give it to the best player of the year, and I'd keep it for myself." The competition is tough between the duo, with Dembele winning a Ligue 1, French Cup and Champions League treble, while the 17-year-old Yamal won LaLiga, the Spanish Cup and Spanish Super Cup. Dembele has scored 35 goals in all competitions for club and country this season, while Yamal has netted 19. The nominees for the 2025 edition of the Ballon d'Or award, which covers August 1-July 31, will be announced at the start of August, with the ceremony taking place on September 22. (Reporting by Anita Kobylinska in Gdansk; Editing by Ken Ferris)
The Star
7 hours ago
- The Star
Tennis-Andreeva keeps Kasatkina's wristband as reminder of French Open win
Tennis - French Open - Roland Garros, Paris, France - June 2, 2025 Russia's Mirra Andreeva in action during her fourth round match against Australia's Daria Kasatkina REUTERS/Lisi Niesner PARIS (Reuters) -Russian teenager Mirra Andreeva will hang on to the sweat-soaked wristband that Australia's Daria Kasatkina jokingly threw towards her at the net as a souvenir of their entertaining French Open clash on Monday. The prodigious 18-year-old underlined her credentials as a Roland Garros title contender by outwitting her frequent practice partner and 17th seed Kasatkina 6-3 7-5 to storm into the quarter-finals for a second straight year. Last year's semi-finalist approached the net to shake the hand of the Russian-born Kasatkina after the match and was met with a soggy wristband flying in her direction instead. "She's a great person and a great player. I had a feeling that after the match she's going to do something like this, and I knew that if I would lose I would also do something funny," sixth seed Andreeva told reporters. "When she threw her wristband at me, it was funny. It was a nice gesture from her. "After that, we exchanged kind words, and she told me congratulations. Of course, I said it was a good match. I kept the wristband so it's going to be in my bag for now." Andreeva joked in her on-court interview that she practised with Kasatkina only because she "hated" her and later said that a changed mindset helped her avenge a three-set defeat by the 28-year-old in the Ningbo final last year. "When I first played Dasha, it was much more difficult for me to stay focused and not to be nice on the court," she said. "Compared to the last match, today I knew that she's going to want to beat me on the court. I don't know what changed, but today was not that hard to change my mindset and step on court and be opponents. "I don't know how, but I managed to tell myself that I'm playing against the ball, not against the opponent. I just tried to focus on the ball that I have to hit, and I was able to keep this focus throughout the whole match so I'm proud of myself." (Reporting by Shrivathsa Sridhar in Paris; Editing by Ken Ferris)
