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The Vivid i machine has GE looking at athletes differently ... and raking in the cash.

There's a competition after the competitions that makes for some interesting analysis—the contest among Olympics sponsors for attention. Big companies vying for a piece of rings pie try to get out their message at tremendous cost, whether it's that Usain Bolt wears Puma or Michael Phelps uses Visa. We came away impressed with one pitch in particular: that of GE Healthcare.

Yes, we know GE owns NBC, which is a competitor, but we've already ripped their coverage, and we believe in being fair and balanced.

GE threw its weight behind a program to analyze health and performance of U.S. athletes. And, yes, to help sell stuff.

Dr. Malissa Wood, a cardiologist at Massachusetts General, has studied the hearts of elite athletes using a Vivid i cardiac compact ultrasound machine. She analyzes how the athletes' hearts pump blood, looking for clues as to the causes of sudden cardiac deaths in sports. After studying elite rowers and weightlifters, she found that enlarged hearts, once thought to be a risk for athletes under all circumstances, were often a result of the hard work athletes do.

"What we found was the athletes weren't born that way," she says. "The heart is smart and adapts to how much blood it has to pump."

Dr. Wood's work makes it easier to tell whether an enlarged athlete heart is a warning sign of disease or a sign that the training's going well. She expects elite athletic programs to use the machines not just to screen for risk factors, but to help gauge athlete fitness as well.

GE scored some more PR gold with swimmer Aaron Peirsol. The gold-medalist backstroker was able to tell a good story for the company's portable MRI and ultrasound equipment. It just so happened that Peirsol needed it at these Games.

"I finished short on the wall, with my elbow straight," Peirsol says, recalling the end of his 100m backstroke race. "My left elbow popped out, and I hyperextended it."

Later that night, his arm was useless.

"It kept tightening up, and I couldn't really tell how serious it was," he says.

Peirsol knew it was the kind of injury where proper treatment is hard to figure out; without an MRI, doctors would basically be guessing.

Enter GE's equipment.

"It's literally like a laptop, with a 15-inch screen," Peirsol says. "They took a look at it, and they knew I could take some Ibuprofen and be ready to swim two races and the relay. I never had to shoot up with any cortisone or anything, which can make an injury worse because you can't feel it."

Without the right diagnosis, Peirsol says, "Maybe I don't swim in the relay, and maybe Michael doesn't get his eighth gold medal."

And maybe GE doesn't get some good marketing.

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