As Americans we have a saying: “trust but verify.” When it comes to Electronic Scoring Targets (ESTs) I will openly admit that many of Athena’s competitors can be trusted; they are accurate systems. However, despite their exceedingly high price point, shots scored on their ESTs can not be verified in real time. Shots scored on Athena can be verified.
With Athena we changed everything about the shot verification process. Athletes can verify their shots as they shoot, with their own eyes. And if an unlikely mistake was made, match officials can make corrections as the match is progressing using the Orion software. This process is remarkably fairer and easier than our competitors, who can only verify a shot’s score after the relay is completed, and only after the witness strip is painstakingly evaluated using expertise, rulers, and straight edges. And that’s assuming their system has a witness strip at all.
When an athlete is shooting, on their DoW100 monitor is a “Verify” button. After any shot they fire, they can tap it to view how Athena scored their last shot. Perhaps the athlete called a shot a 10, but instead a 9 is displayed on the monitor. With just a tap of their finger, they can see with their own eyes exactly how their last shot got scored while remaining in position. While they might not like the fact they shot a 9 instead of a 10, they can be satisfied that they are getting the score they earned.
Let's say though, for the sake of argument, that Athena did score a shot incorrectly. The athlete can raise their hand and get the attention of the range officer. Together with the stat officer, they can then look up the same shot using Orion, with the same verification image the athlete saw, and see for themselves if the shot was scored correctly.
If the stat officer agrees, they are then empowered to make a correction. Using Orion’s simple interface and their mouse, the stat officer corrects the location of the shot. After hitting Save, the shot location as well as the athlete’s score is corrected. Instantly the correction is shown on the Athlete’s Monitor, in Orion, and online within Rezults.
In the example above, where an athlete called a shot a 10 but the monitor displayed it as a 9, with our competitor’s EST systems, the comparative experience can diverge significantly for athletes, range officials, and spectators.
First, the athlete can not verify for themselves the accuracy of the scored shot. All they have is their call to go on. Their only two options are to either challenge the shot or accept the 9 unverified.
If they choose to challenge the shot they must notify the range officer and will be subject to a challenge fee. The range officer can only make note of the challenge at this time and will inform the athlete to continue to shoot, and fire one added protest shot at the end of their normal course of fire. The spectators will continue to see the original score on the scoreboard.
Only after the relay is completed will the range officer go down range and collect the witness strip. Then, using a printout of the previous shot's location, the range officer will try and reconstruct the location of the challenged shot, using rulers, straight edges, and a sharp drawing pencil.
Once the range officer is done reconstructing the location of the shot, they can confirm the shot’s location (a lost challenge) or say the score of the challenged shot is wrong (a won challenge). If the challenge is lost, the athlete pays a challenge fee and has an added two point penalty.
If the challenge is won, the shot is annulled, and the extra protest shot the athlete fired is instead counted. Due to the complexity of verifying the shot using the witness strip, this is usually tens of minutes after the relay is completed. And only then would the score get updated along with the ranking of athletes.
If you think this entire verification process sounds complicated, it is! But that’s the process you have to follow on our competitor’s EST systems. And you only have this process if they have a witness strip. Some EST systems don’t even have this.
Athletes should get the score that they earned. This is a fundamental value we hold as Scopos. Athena’s shot verification process lets every athlete see for themselves that their scores are accurate. If a mistake was made, the match officials can make a correction quickly and easily with Orion.
Transparent shot validation is one more way that Athena is changing everything.
