Team Ukraine have hit the ground running at the Winter Paralympics, standing second in the medal table after three days of competition. Their resolve and determination has been inspirational to many, but one athlete has revealed a secret weapon in their search for a competitive edge: using ChatGPT as a coach.

Maksym Murashkovskyi won silver in the men’s visually impaired biathlon on Sunday and he did not miss a shot. He has also been working with OpenAI’s large language model for six months, using artificial intelligence not just for coaching advice but psychological and health guidance too.

“For the past six months, I have been training with ChatGPT,” Murashkovskyi said after his victory. “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.”

Murashkovskyi was remarkably composed after coming second so comfortably in only his second Paralympic race. “I know it sounds strange, but I have been preparing for this race for many years, so it is what it is,” he said, though how much of his calm was down to ChatGPT he did not say.

The 25-year-old argued that AI allowed him to train in new ways. “I believe in it, it is a revolutionary technology,” he said, adding that it had replaced what he called “classical” training “as I’ve always done, with humans”.

AI has been deployed in the conflict in Ukraine, used to find targets and analyse satellite footage, something Murahskovskyi acknowledged. “Unfortunately, you see it in the military sphere too, and in bad spheres,” he said. “But it’s like with chemistry or biology, someone can use it for something good, someone can use it for something bad. I use it for learning, for languages, for some of my projects, in chemistry, biology and sports.”

Ukraine have 10 medals so far at the Paralympic Games. Murahskovskyi will compete again in the visually impaired cross-country skiing competition on Tuesday, with two of Russia’s six invited athletes also in action at the Tesero cross-country arena, albeit in different classifications.