The Paralympic medallist using AI as ‘psychologist, coach and doctor’

Most athletes credit their families after winning a Paralympic medal, perhaps their coaches, their friends, the wider ‘team behind the team’.

But after winning biathlon silver on Sunday, Ukraine’s Maksym Murashkovskyi gave credit to something a little more unexpected.

Artificial intelligence.

“For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,” the 25-year-old said after finishing second in the men’s individual vision impaired event.

“It was not only tactics. It was half of my training plan, motivation, etcetera. So it was a huge volume of all of my training.

“I used it as a psychologist, coach and, sometimes, as a doctor.”

Guided by Vitaliy Trush, Murashkovskyi took silver behind China’s Dang Hesong.

Competing at his first Winter Paralympics, he placed seventh in his opening event, the men’s sprint, on Saturday, and has three further chances of medals.

He wasn’t doing too badly before he took to the AI tool. In 2023, he won World Championship bronze and is a multiple World Cup medallist.

Without ChatGPT, he says he would have stuck to “classical training, as I’ve always done, with humans” – but he doesn’t think human coaches have anything to worry about just yet.

Asked if he thinks they will soon be replaced by AI, he replied: “Not completely for five to 10 years. But part of it, definitely.”

“I can give great credit to ChatGPT,” he added. “I believe in it, it is a revolutionary technology.”