IOC Young Leader Shiling Lin embraces AI to usher in the next generation of urban athletes

I’m from quite a small city in China, Quanzhou, and have always been influenced by the traditional sports I saw growing up there. People weren’t always playing the major sports you see at the Olympic Games on television, but sports that had been created in this corner of the world with what was available.

Further down the line, I was also able to gain a clear view of the impact sport can have in my overseas marketing role for a Chinese sports brand. I saw that fans don’t want just to watch the top athletes; they want to be like them, to participate themselves, and be part of the latest sporting trends. That’s the key idea I embraced when I stepped into the sports industry, and from there I decided to study sports management for my PhD at the University of Massachusetts in the US.

GreenNwild

I have always been fascinated by traditional, non-Olympic sports, like dragon boat racing in China. The athletes often come from underdeveloped areas due to a lack of available equipment or facilities for more mainstream sports such as tennis or football, so they participate in their own unique sports. We’ve seen throughout history that these Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) sports can grow very quickly and even become Olympic sports, like breaking at Paris 2024. This, in essence, is the inspiration behind my IOC Young Leader project – to promote these sports and engage the younger population to help them grow.

As IOC Young Leaders, one of our main objectives is to use sport as a tool to benefit our own communities and encourage more people to take part in physical activities. My project, GreenNwild, is therefore committed to promoting both traditional and Olympic sports to engage the younger generations in China, primarily through digital marketing and new media techniques. This is the reason I focused on breaking – it has already become quite popular in China following its inclusion in the Youth Olympic and now Olympic Games, and importantly it’s not just for the biggest cities like Beijing and Shanghai, but also rural, underserved areas because it’s such an accessiblesport. I feel it’s my responsibility to pay more attention to these areas, to help the people there have greater access to sport and to live healthier lifestyles. They might not have access to many sports facilities, but breaking, much like skateboarding, is open to all and can be practised anywhere.

In order to promote awareness of ICH sports, GreenNwild successfully organised two summer camps in 2022 featuring basketball and the juggling game, diabolo, with 150 people taking part. We followed this up in February 2023 with a community event in downtown Beijing that featured breaking and the martial art Wing Chun, which attracted over 200 participants and some media interest.

Using AI to reach the next generation and get them moving

Perhaps the most significant method of promoting traditional sports for my project is creating videos using new media methods, including AI. In 2022, GreenNwild produced its first Artificial Intelligence Generated Content (AIGC) short film with award-winning director Wu Tong, which focused on the traditional sports of dragon boat racing, kayaking and canoeing. Using AIGC really helped us to knit the three sports together in a natural, exciting way, meaning that even though the individuals in the video were filmed in different locations, we could include them together in one story.

We also created another promotional video focused on breaking to celebrate Olympic Day 2023 that really shows the benefits of using AI to tell a story. We wanted to convey its unique fusion of art, sport and culture in a way that breaks boundaries, while also showing that, through sport, we all speak the same language. In this case, we used AI to blur the boundaries of reality in the transitions between scenes, which flicker seamlessly between China and Paris using ink wash paintings, impressionism and other artistic styles. I wanted to convey the fact that sport is a way to break boundaries between cultures and create a space where everyone can enjoy sport, friendship and peace. I think the video has a lot of energy; it really makes you want to get up and dance!

Let’s Move Street Challenge

The IOC’s Let’s Move Street Challenge aims to encourage more people to get active and capture how they take part in skateboarding, breaking and BMX freestyleand share this on social media. It’s another way the IOC is trying to engage the younger generations, and I look forward to seeing all the creative entries.

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A new Olympic initiative

The Let’s Move Street Challenge is a unique digital competition inviting BMX freestyle, breaking and skateboarding enthusiasts to showcase their best sporting moves and creative talent for the chance to win incredible prizes. A new Olympic initiative created by the IOC with support from Worldwide Olympic Partner Samsung, the online contest opened for submissions on 23 September and will close on 22 October. Find out more here.

IOC Young Leaders Programme contributing to Olympism 365 days a year

Launched in 2016, the IOC Young Leaders Programme empowers young people to leverage the power of sport to make a positive difference in their communities, and therefore contributes to the Olympism365 strategy aimed at strengthening the role of sport as an important enabler of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in direct response to the IOC’s Olympic Agenda 2020+5.

So far, with the support of the IOC, these inspiring young people have delivered over 140 sport-led projects in communities across the globe, promoting education and livelihoods, equality and inclusion, health, peace building and sustainability, directly benefitting more than 30,000 people.

Learn more about the IOC Young Leaders Programme and the Olympism365 strategy.

Worldwide Olympic Partner Panasonic’s continued support

The IOC Young Leaders Programme has been supported by Worldwide Olympic and Paralympic Partner Panasonic since 2017, and this will continue through to 2024. Panasonic, as the programme’s founding partner, is committed to supporting the IOC Young Leaders through various initiatives, for example providing its creative and technological expertise, along with its network of influencers and ambassadors, to inspire the Young Leaders and equip them with the skills and tools they need to enhance their projects.

Find out more about Panasonic’s support for the programme and sign up for the “IOC Young Leaders in Action” newsletter to get the latest updates.