Suzanne Lenglen, a legendary French tennis player and Olympic champion. Photo credit: International Olympic Committee
The last time Paris hosted the Olympic Games, less than 5% of competitors were women. A century on, this figure has climbed to 50% —making Paris 2024 the first Games to achieve full gender parity.
To mark the milestone and celebrate the female Olympians who paved the way, Alibaba Group has leveraged artificial intelligence technology to colorize and restore vintage photographs of female athletes from 1900 onwards.
The enhanced archival materials feature in the short film ‘To the Greatness of HER,’ which premiered on July 24 in Paris.
The film follows the Olympic participation of Chinese skeet shooter Zhang Shan and American runner Kathrine Switzer, as well as French tennis trailblazer Suzanne Lenglen, who won 21 grand slam titles between 1921 and 1926.
“Seeing these historical photos renewed by technology enables us to reflect on how far we’ve come and to continue the progress of bringing sport opportunities to more women worldwide,” said Switzer, who made history in 1967 as the first woman to run the Boston Marathon with an official race number.
Switzer attended the film premiere alongside Zhang, who became the first woman to win a mixed-sex skeet shooting event during the Barcelona 1992 Olympics.
“By reliving that moment, I hope we can encourage more people to pursue the sports that they are passionate about,” said Zhang.
Driving Inclusion
Over the past 25 years, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has introduced various initiatives to increase female participation at the Olympic Games.
Efforts include adding mixed-gender events, increasing the number of medal events for female athletes and balancing the total number of hours of competition for women’s and men’s sport.
“Gender equality is a team sport. We all have a role to play and we all have to lead by example,” said Thomas Bach, President of the IOC, in video remarks played during the film premiere.
The selection of sports open for women to compete in at the Olympics has grown steadily over the years.
Women’s football and softball were introduced in 1996, followed by women’s weightlifting, triathlon and modern pentathlon in 2000 and wrestling in 2004.
In 2012, the introduction of women’s boxing marked a significant milestone: the first time women were able to compete in every sport on the Olympic programme.
“Alibaba is proud to collaborate closely with the IOC to champion inclusivity and equity, core values that Alibaba firmly upholds,” Chris Tung, President of Alibaba Group, Strategic Development, noted in a statement.
Revitalizing Historic Moments
While Alibaba used cloud-based AI technologies to colorize and enhance the resolution of archival images, its cloud computing arm also worked to breathe fresh life into video footage from Paris 1924.
By leveraging a set of video restoration model and video colorization model, Alibaba Cloud improved the video quality through denoising and deblurring and maintained a coherent color narrative throughout all frames in the video.
“My heartfelt thanks go to our friends at Alibaba for using AI-powered technology to let the achievements of these women in sports shine through the full spectrum of colors,” said Bach.
The initiative also aligns with the Olympic AI Agenda that the IOC launched earlier in the year which sets out the envisioned impact that AI can deliver for sport and how the IOC, as the leader of the Olympic Movement, intends to lead on the global implementation of AI within sport.
The Olympic AI Agenda has defined a strategic goal to leverage AI effectively across five key focus areas, among which is ensuring equal access to the benefits of AI.
