Snowboarding live scoring system to be introduced at the Burton New Zealand Open

Following the successful launch of the Snowboarding Live Scoring System™ at The Oakley Arctic Challenge slopestyle last winter, major events on the Swatch TTR World Tour have agreed to work together to expand and implement the system for all halfpipe, slopestyle and big air competitions for the upcoming 2010/11 season. The Live Scoring System is planned to be introduced across all 6Star TTR events in an effort to break down barriers posed by the current Overall Impression system and to improve the presentation and understanding of competitive freestyle snowboarding as a whole.

In a tight partnership between TTR, the World Snowboard Federation, the events, judges and riders, the Live Scoring System was developed as a completely new way to judge snowboarding. The current system in use, called Overall Impression, focuses on a rider’s run in its entirety and provides little to no feedback to riders or spectators on how a score is generated. The new Live Scoring System is more transparent and allows everyone to clearly see how judges give points by scoring each trick individually in a rider’s run. Each trick score is added up to generate a total trick score that is then combined with a total flow score (how well a rider links all tricks in the run) to make up the final score for a rider’s run.

The Live Scoring system will be used for the first time in both halfpipe and slopestyle at the 2010 Burton New Zealand Open. If the system is well received among riders, media and fans, the goal is to integrate the system in all 6Star TTR events throughout the upcoming 2010/11 season. However, based on the overall feedback from riders, spectators and television viewers from the 2010 Arctic Challenge, the general consensus is the system will be a major leap forward for the sport.

Leading the development of this new judging system are experienced head judges Dani Kiwi Meier and Greg Johnson who have both been involved with snowboard judging systems for over 15 years. Meier and Johnson have been working with top riders on the new judging system, especially Torstein Horgmo, Andreas Ygre Wiig and Terje Haakonsen, who have been key players in the overall development. Snowboard VM 2012, a Norwegian organization that will oversee the operation of the 2012 World Snowboarding Championships, has financially backed the development of the Live Scoring System and is also the current owner of the new system. Snowboard VM 2012 plans to make the new judging system available to all interested events within the TTR ranking system.

The 5Star Burton New Zealand Open will take place August 10-14, 2010 at Cardrona Alpine Resort. For a sneak peak at how the new Live Scoring System will work, the New Zealand Open will be webcast live on August 13th and 14th in New Zealand time zones and on August 12th and 13th in North American time zones at GO211.com. Check opensnowboarding.com or GO211.com for complete webcast details.