The winners in 2011 (Pic: Carter/PWA).

Cold Hawaii 2012 will see a new live scoring system

Today is the start of the PWA wave event for men in Klitmøller, Denmark. The PWA wave sailors meet for the third time this year and will see a new live scoring system. The confusion in knowing who is winning a heat should be a thing of the past for windsurfing fans everywhere with the introduction of live scoring. The PWA judges, who have used a pen and paper method for almost 25 years, have been testing the new “live scoring” system that allows them to input their scores during a heat into a tablet computer and upload them to the internet. 

Rich Page, the PWA tour manager: “It is only fitting that Denmark will be the first place where we have that system up and running being an event that has driven a new generation of live interaction and social media in windsurfing. With slalom it’s very easy to keep people engaged because they can easily see who’s winning and losing. That’s one thing you can never do in wave or freestyle up until now. But the system is in beta, we’ve been testing it to make sure it’s ready to be used in anger.”

Anger is one thing that Klass Voget, the experienced world top 10 German rider, thinks we may see less of with the introduction of live scoring. “It will eliminate judges changing scores afterwards and things like that,” Voget says. “There will be less discussion. Also, it makes it much more interesting to watch, if you know who’s in the lead.”

It will make it much more exciting to follow both in the live streaming and on the shore, where at the moment you have a commentator who is not really sure what the score is and just can describe, what he sees. Now the commentator gets the chance to use the scoring and makes the commentating quite exciting.

It is a revolution made in Denmark. At last year’s Cold Hawaii event the score sheet was published online after every heat for the first time, paving the way for live scoring.

Rasmus Johnsen, head of new media and technology at the Active Institute at the University of Aarhus, began the plan to bring the World Cup to Klitmøller and windsurfing into the 21st century. He has been part of a team making the sport more shareable and understandable, for the riders, journalists,commentators and spectators and scaleable for organisers. The live scoring web-based software has been designed by Kurosh Kiani, a Danish Slalom Pro. 

Live scoring does not mean everyone will agree with the judges’ decisions, but could avoid long discussion after the heats. At least it will bring a quick information for spectators at the beach and on the live stream.
 

Have a look on the world class entry list with some new young faces on:

The entry list 2012, and Thomas Traversa is on the way to Denmark as well! (Source: pwaworldtour.com).

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