Tokyo Olympics: IOA announces partnership with Gopichand-backed Dhyana

The IOA has acquired smart Dhyana rings and its health management services for the entire Indian Tokyo Olympics contingent and is working together to prioritise mental wellness.

Chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand with the Dhyana ring which will be given to the entire Indian contingent for the Tokyo Olympics.

The Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced a partnership with Dhyana, the startup behind the smart ring that measures the quality of meditation which was developed by chief national badminton coach Pullela Gopichand and the Oxford University alumni and biomedical technology entrepreneur Bhairav Shankar.

The IOA has acquired smart Dhyana rings and its health management services for the entire Indian contingent headed for the Tokyo Olympics and is working together to prioritise mental wellness and improve focus of the athletes amidst the ongoing pandemic.

The smart Dhyana ring is capable of measuring ‘mindful minutes’, or the amount of time any person is actually focusing during a meditation session.

It does this by continuously tracking a person's Heart Rate Variability (HRV), or the gap in between two consecutive heartbeats, which is further broken down into the three fundamentals of every meditation session -- the quality of breathing, focus and relaxation.

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These Dhyana rings have been used by Gopichand to help his students achieve their ‘mindfulness goals’ -- which range from improving focus, productivity to overall mental health.

The IOA has not only recognised the importance of mental wellness, but is drawing from its cultural roots to address it with technology. Dhyana, which is made in India, hence becomes the first official meditation device to be used at the Olympics.

“The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games is going to be extremely challenging owing to the exceptional circumstances it is being held in,” Gopichand said.

“I have always relied on the benefits of meditation throughout my entire career -- both as a player and as a coach, and am confident that data-driven meditation with the help of Dhyana will greatly benefit the Indian contingent to prepare better and help them unlock their full potential,” added the national coach.

“IOA is proud to team up with Dhyana to provide state-of-the-art medical-grade technology to the Indian contingent headed to the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games,” claimed Rajiv Mehta, secretary general of IOA.