DNP: German shot put World Champion Storl uses AI to turn Hindi-speaking coach

A couple of weeks ago, shortly after he made his latest post on Instagram, David Storl received multiple calls from worried friends. “They thought my account was hacked and somebody was posting stuff on it,” he recalls.

His friends had reason to be startled.

Storl might have been an exceptionally proficient athlete – he is a two-time World champion and an Olympic silver medallist in the men’s shot put – but until recently he admits he hadn’t shown any aptitude for languages.

Now, in a post sent out to his 81,000 followers on the social media handle, Storl was speaking in flawless Hindi while promoting a beginners course in the shot put – which incidentally is also in Hindi.

‘ Bharat ke mere sabhi mitro ko namaskar. Aapmese kai ne mujse shot put ke takniq sampark kiya hai…. humne apne naye online pathyakram ka hindi me anuvad karne ka nirnay liya hai jisse aapko apne takniki kaushal me sudhar karne me madad milegi.

(Hello to my friends from India. A lot of you have reached out to me to learn shot put techniques…. we have decided to translate my online (shot put) course into Hindi which will help you improve your technique).

Was Storl hiding a gift for languages?

“No I can’t speak a word of Hindi,” laughs the 35-year-old, in a video call with  Sportstar.

Instead, he was speaking in English and used video AI (Artificial intelligence) software to both translate and lip-sync his speech. His half-an-hour-long shot put course in which he teaches the basics of the glide technique has been produced the same way.

Storl didn’t start out thinking he was going to use AI to make a shot put course in Hindi. He had retired from competitive athletics a year back after a career that had seen him win gold medals at the 2011 and 2013 World Championships, silver at the 2015 Worlds and a silver at the 2012 London Olympics.

Storl who stood 6-6 and weighed 117kg at his athletic peak, was working as a policeman in the East German town of Leipzig while also coaching – he trained Luxembourg para athlete Tom Habscheid to a bronze medal at the 2024 Paris Paralympics.

Fans in India

It was while working as a part-time coach that he thought of doing an online course. “I actually used to post video analysis of techniques of athletes and a lot of athletes contacted me directly. So I thought of how I could help all these athletes and so I decided to do an online course for athletes who are just at the beginning of learning the technique,” he says.

At first Storl made the video in German and English, the two languages he could speak. But then the thought of doing the course in Hindi crossed his mind.

“It was actually my idea to do a course in Hindi because we produced the course in German and English. And then my friend from the US with whom I’m making the course said we have a technology to translate the course in other languages too,” he says.

Although he hadn’t ever been to India, Storl says he had often interacted with Indian athletes over Instagram. “They’d send me videos about their technique and want me to advise them. In the videos, I could see the conditions they trained in. When you practice in Germany or in Europe, the conditions are always great. I loved the mindset these Indian athletes had. They don’t have easy facilities but they want to reach something. I felt there needed to be an easy way to give them access to this course,” he says.

While Storl knew a software existed to translate his course, he still had his worries. “My biggest concern at first was that I wasn’t sure if the translated stuff really explained what I wanted it to in the right direction. I felt the athlete might understand what I really want to say with the English or with the German words I used but I wasn’t sure whether that was the case with Hindi,” he says.

Cross checking the AI

Storl says he called an Indian discus thrower – Abhishek Choudhary – who he had befriended during a college exchange program – to help him iron out the details.

“The problem is I really know a lot about shot putting and the glide technique but it’s not easy to explain the details in another language. I think the hardest bit to translate was the section on the power position of the glide because many movements are taking place at the same point. It’s difficult to explain the different parts of this small gap in an understandable way. Because in German I really absolutely know what to say. In English, it’s difficult, but in Hindi I don’t understand anything. So I had Abhishek translate that bit in English in a way that would make sense to a Hindi speaker when the AI translated this into Hindi,” he says.

Storl is optimistic about how the course will help athletes. “The course is about half-an-hour and I focus on the glide technique which is what every young athlete starts with (more experienced throwers utilise the spin technique although Storl won all his international medals using the glide method). You can use it for training sessions, you can watch the course where I explain an exercise and you can do the exercise and compare your technique to my technique. I think it’s a pretty good way to learn the technique. I hope that I will help a lot of athletes all over the world to improve their technique and to plan a training session in a good way,” he says.

While it’s still early to say whether his decision to use AI to bring German coaching to an Indian audience has been a success, Storl says he has at least one high-profile supporter – double Olympic medallist Neeraj Chopra.

“I actually knew Neeraj’s coach Klaus Bartonietz. He was a former coach of (two-time shot put world bronze medallist) Boris Henry. Neeraj and I have met each other and we have practised together in the same stadium. He’s a great guy, a very polite athlete and it was always a pleasure for me to stay in contact with him. I sent him my Hindi video and said, it’s a special course for your athletes from India. I explained to him why I did this in Hindi and he found it absolutely good. He was really happy about it. He said it’s a pretty cool idea,” Storl says.

It’s an idea that Storl says he wants to develop further. “Right now I’m working on the second stage of my course. In this first stage, I’ve spoken about the fundamentals of throwing the glide technique. It’s about preparing, the warm-up, the stance and then I explain the fundamentals of the glide. The second stage will be more detailed and with specific drills to improve the skills from the first course,” he says.

He wants to develop the same course in other languages too. “The next step, we are thinking about a Mandarin course and we’re also thinking about a course in one of the African languages,” he says.

Storl says he will only do courses in languages when he finds someone to cross-check the accuracy of the translation. Although he started his career as a decathlete, he isn’t confident enough to conduct courses on other track and field events or even in the spin technique of the shot put which is what many throwers use these days. However, he says it’s inevitable that AI will be used by other coaches to spread their knowledge.

“I think this (Using AI to translate coaching instructions to different languages) will become more common in the future. It will become a very important part of the future of coaching, because we don’t have so many good and experienced coaches all over the world and it’s a great opportunity to share your experience with all the guys from all levels and I will give a chance to all the athletes in the world to improve their technique and their results. That’s pretty cool,” he says.