TCS Creates Digital Twin of Para-Athlete Milly Pickles' Heart for Training Insights

Tata Consultancy Services has created a digital twin of para-athlete Milly Pickles' heart as part of the Future Athlete Project. The project examines the future of healthcare and sports analysis through digital advancements and affordable price points for personalized healthcare monitoring. The digital twin uses sensors and artificial intelligence to monitor her heart during training sessions.

Milly Pickles, 29 years old, had her right leg amputated from the knee down after being electrocuted at age 20. She also lost two toes, including her big toe, on her left foot from the same incident. Pickles aims to complete the London Marathon in under four and a half hours in 2027 and will run an 8km section of the 2026 London Marathon as preparation.

In 2023, Pickles became the first amputee to complete the Red Bull 400 race, a 400m event involving climbing a ski jump. She decided to do the Red Bull 400 after watching a video of the event. 'Because it scared me when I saw the video, I thought, ‘I have to do it’,' Pickles said.

'Once I got to the top, it really instilled this self-belief within me. And it was a reference point that I could do hard things,' Pickles said. So, obviously, the London Marathon,' she added. The London Marathon is 42km long, and at the time of deciding to run it, the longest distance Pickles had run was 3km.

'It was a real big jump, so the training was challenging, because it was all very new to me,' Pickles said. During training for her first marathon, she ended up in a wheelchair for three weeks after a half marathon. In her first marathon, Pickles reached 31km and walked the remainder after a cut on her left foot began to bleed heavily, and she was advised to stop.

Pickles has completed a second marathon, during which injury forced her to walk some parts. She said she needs highly personalised advice for running due to her physical challenges. 'You hear people online saying, ‘you should do this, you should do that’, and it’s hard to know exactly what to do, so having this personalisation is great,' Pickles said.

'With the two marathons, for example, I was struggling with my recovery, and I was just feeling really tired and I didn’t understand why,' Pickles said. 'When this project came to me, I thought, ‘this is great, because I get to actually learn more about my body and how I can recover better’,' she added.

Pickles uses wearable sensors that perform a consumer-grade ECG to pick up heart rhythms and body readings, according to Ved Sen, head of Innovation at TCS in the UK.

'From a day’s data, we can analyse and have results back to the athlete in the morning to understand what was right about a training session,' Sen said. One team in California specializes in athlete-monitoring services for the project, while one team in India handles health aspects. The project revealed that training near bedtime does not impact Pickles' sleep, unlike for most people.

'In Milly’s case, for example, what we realised is that while a lot of the superficial parameters return to normal, and it felt like she had completely recovered from a run, there were still aspects that were less visible, which were still putting some pressure on her heart,' Sen said.

He said the analysis might indicate that Pickles needs six hours to recover from a run instead of four. 'It’s way more personalised, which is great because, for example, I’ve learned that if I don’t get enough sleep, it could tell me that I’m not ready to train,' Pickles said.

'People say sleep’s important, but I feel like I’ve actually learned and understand what is happening to my body and why I need more sleep,' Pickles said. She has started improving her sleep and having more consistent bedtimes. Pickles said heart readings have helped her understand how her mood could affect training.

Sen said this technology supports the healthcare sector's focus on prevention of health problems. 'The world of healthcare is moving from curing to prevention because that’s where the real value is,' Sen said. TCS has run the same project with professional athlete Des Linden, who won the Boston Marathon in 2018.

'With Milly, it’s how, as an amateur runner, can she survive the marathon without injuring herself, while with Des Linden, it’s about how to knock two minutes off a personal best,' Sen said. TCS's team in California uses the technologies in care homes to monitor elderly people when walking. Sen said industries such as cosmetics could benefit from digital twins of people's skin.

'We can analyse all the different layers of the skin under the microscope and then create a model that shows how skin behaves under certain conditions,' Sen said. He said an additional benefit of this technology could remove the need to carry out tests on animals.