Sports should be live, exciting, and interactive. Shooting deserves the same level of spectator engagement as any other sport.  It's incredulous that national level organizations in the United States still think it is acceptable to announce the winners of their match five, ten, or even sixty minutes after the last shot is fired. Instead, here at Scopos, we believe shooting should have the same level of live updates as basketball, football, or baseball, and we’re building a system to do just that.  With the latest version of our suite of products, Orion, Athena, and Rezults, we’ve introduced new technologies to bring shooting closer to the state of the art shared by the other sports. We are pleased to now introduce:

• Rank Trends: Easily track which marksmen are moving up and which are moving down the result list.
• Last Shot: Watch live, the scores of the last shot fired by each athlete.
• Current Marksmen: Choose to watch only those marksman shooting on the current relay.

“Scopos already has shooting’s most advanced Result List system. With today’s announcement we take the state of the art and advance it even further, making online Result Lists more engaging for spectators and the whole of the shooting sports.” - Dr. Erik Anderson, Chief Architect at Scopos.

The latest release of Orion, Athena and Rezults’ technology, Rank Trends, Last Shot, and Watch Current Marksmen, makes it easier for spectators to track and watch the excitement of the competition.

Rank Trends

Rank Trends are our new way to graphically track which marksmen are moving up the rankings, which are moving down.  They appear alongside each participant's rank while they are shooting and if there is a recent change to their projected finish. An up triangle means they are moving up, a down triangle means they are moving down. The number in superscript next to the arrow is the number of places.

In this screenshot from Rezults, we see the up triangle next to Delgado’s name, meaning she just took the lead in this match. The down triangle next to Vargas’ name means she fell out of the lead down to second

We initially developed Rank Trends for our new final presentations. In a final, they help commentators tell the story of the event. It gives commentators and spectators alike a way to easily see which marksman shot well in the previous series and moved up. Or conversely, which marksman may have faltered in the last series and moved down.  We liked how well Ranked Trends work in our final presentations, that we decided to implement them in qualification too. 

In qualification, Rank Trends work slightly differently. Instead of comparing rankings between the current and the last commentary point (because there are no commentary points in qualification), Rank Trends compare the current rankings with the rankings one minute ago.

Last Shot

Last Shot is Scopos’ new technology that shows the score of the last shot fired, by each marksman, as part of the result list. This play by play brings you closer to the live, shot by shot, action of the sport. Shot scores are updated live and throughout the competition.

Last Shot is currently available for matches scored by Athena. Where available, result lists now include a “LS” column. LS is short for Last Shot, as in the score of the last shot fired. Shot values are updated for both sighters and competition shots, and usually updated within about 15s of when the marksmen fires their rifle or pistol.

Record fire shots are displayed in an orange circle. Sighters are displayed in grey. The arrow next to the score is the direction of the shot.

The new “LS” column, short for Last Shot, is the score of the last shot fired by each marksman. It is updated live, as they shoot. The arrow next to it, indicates the direction of the shot.

Watch Current Marksmen

Watch Current Marksmen is Scopos’ new technology to show only the athletes shooting on the current relay. By enabling it, athletes who shot on previous relays are hidden. This technology, while simple in concept, makes it easier for spectators and coaches to watch only those scores that are being shot now.

Watch Current Marksmen works for EST, paper target, and manual entry scores. It is available on all competition types, but only while the competition is ongoing and may be seen on Rezult’s mobile and desktop view. Rezults continues to rank participants by their predictive scores and shows the gap between each participant and the leader of the event. The top three scores, regardless of the relay they were on, are always shown.

Conclusion

Paying close attention to this announcement and our previous one on finals, you would notice we have been giving a lot of thought to improving the way spectators view and interact with our sport. If shooting is going to grow in popularity, we must find ways to attract not just top athletes, but crowds of spectators to cheer them on.

At Scopos, our mission is to use technology to turn shooting into a spectator sport. The advances introduced today take us three steps closer to achieving that goal. Spectators can now more easily see which participants are moving up or moving down the rankings, watch the marksmen currently shooting, and get live shot by shot updates. Scopos is making these updates on Orion, Athena, and Rezults, as a free upgrade, for all existing customers.