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GAME CHANGER Bloomberg Pursuits January 29, 2018

Mounir Zok

The master sports technician
getting America’s Olympians on the

podium. By Eben Novy-Williams

76
SOME OF THE MOST ADVANCED family in 2012 to the USOC’s
sports technology on the home in Colorado Springs.
planet isn’t being created Four years later he was
at a shoe lab in Oregon or named director for technol-
a moonshot factory inside ogy and innovation and relo-
Google. It’s coming out of a cated to Silicon Valley. The
guy’s house. move brought him closer to
Mounir Zok, the biomedical people who speak his language;
engineer in charge of the U.S. in interviews he references the IoT
Olympic Committee’s tech and inno- (internet of things) far more than the
vation, brainstorms products and training IOC (International Olympic Committee).
aids from his home in Cupertino, Calif. Together For the Winter Games in Pyeongchang, Zok and
with his team of engineers and specialists, he’s produced, his team built virtual-reality ski-training software and ana-
among other training gear, a set of connected glasses for lyzed different ice types to determine which kind of skate
the U.S. women’s cycling pursuit team that projects perfor- blade is fastest in varying conditions. They also developed
mance data directly onto lenses. “Just like a butterfly can a skin suit that doubles as a full-body sensor, helping ath-
never be a caterpillar again,” Zok says, “once an athlete letes get a more holistic view of their heart rate, skin con-
starts using technology to peak when she wants to peak, ductance, speed, and muscle fatigue.
limit injuries, and maximize performance, she can never That level of wearable tech is likely years away from
go back to just intuitive training.” The team used being available to consumers. Zok won’t say
them to prepare for the 2016 Summer Games b. 1976, Beirut who his partners were in the development pro-
and won a silver medal. Once played bass cess or even which athletes are using the suits;
-
Zok was born in Lebanon and studied phys- in a band, because, he any hints might tip off Olympic engineers in
says, he wasn’t good
ics at the American University of Beirut. He enough to play guitar other countries, erasing the USOC’s advan-
earned a doctorate in biomedical engineering - tage. “I call it the 1 percent question,” he says.
Has been making his
from the University of Bologna and was working way west since birth, “Olympic events typically come down to a 1 per-
on a couple of tech startups, including one with living in Lebanon, cent advantage. So what’s the one question that, ILLUSTRATION BY SAM KERR
various Italian Olympic teams, when the USOC Cyprus, Italy, Spain, if we can provide an answer, will give our ath-
Colorado, and now
called. Zok jumped at the job offer, moving his California letes that 1 percent edge?”