To help fans understand gold medal winning snowboarder Iouri Padladtchikov’s YOLO flip during the 2014 Winter Olympics Games in Sochi an interactive data visualization was created in a collaborative effort between the Neue Zürcher Zeitung , a Swiss newspaper, and +Datavisualization.ch. The finished data visualization was used in the E-book You Only Fly Once published by the paper but its creation is broken down in the article, Interactively Explore the YOLO Flip .

The data visualization tool starts by helping the reader understanding the halfpipe itself using a Swiss train to present an idea of the size and length of the platform, essentially a 22 foot high, 66 foot wide and 591 foot long snow and iced covered ramp.

The reader then can see three aspects of the YOLO flip broken into tricks known as the Backside Air (style), a Frontside 900 (twist), and a Frontside Double Cork 1080 (flip).

Next, the reader sees ghosted key frame overview of the jump. By hovering the cursor over an image, the reader is shown movements taking place as well as the real-time video image. The real time data visualization gives the reader a feel for the jump as they move from image to image or by viewing the original video.

The creators started with a mix of three separately designed screens including an introduction for the visualization tool, a video and an interactive. Yet, the three did not seem right separately so they were combined into one full interactive. Using the SensorLog iPhone app to send information to their computer, they discovered the pitch, roll and yaw by collecting gyroscope data through holding their iPhones to mimic the Russian born Swiss snowboarder’s position. The data had to be adjusted slightly to provide a better visual match so it is close but not perfect.