British Eventing takes steps towards live scoring
Waiting by scoreboards could be a thing of the past as British Eventing (BE) looks to embrace technology.
Live scoring could soon be rolled out across all BE competitions and the organisation is currently trying to find or develop a system to display scores on-screen at competitions and upload them to the Internet.
At the moment, most events rely on scorers calculating and writing marks out by hand onto paper scoreboards.
However some competitions — including those run by Bede events, including Belton (pictured) — are already using live scoring.
The recent BE board directors’ meeting (9 February) heard chief executive David Holmes is meeting with suppliers.
A BE spokesman said it is looking for a “cost-effective” system, which could be used at all events, but gave no time frame.
Mr Holmes told H&H last year about the importance of working closely with sponsors and stakeholders to push eventing forwards (interview, 4 June 2015).
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“A sport is a business and it has to be run in a commercial and businesslike way,” he said.
BE has also revealed it will carry out research, both inside and outside the sport, on the possibility of changing the name of eventing to “equestrian triathlon”.
The name change is a proposal by the FEI to fit in with the Olympic 2020 Agenda and International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) requirement to remodel horse sports.
Equestrianism is one of several sports asked by the IOC to increase its public and media appeal, involve more countries and make scoring easier to understand. The name change is likely to be approved by the FEI eventing committee before it is presented to the FEI Sports Forum (p5).
Former BE chief executive and double Olympic course-builder Mike Etherington-Smith has blasted the idea (news, 4 February). However, at the time Mr Holmes said BE supported the new name.
Ref: Horse & Hound; 17 March 2016
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Lucy is an experienced news journalist, reporter and presenter. Since joining the Horse & Hound team in 2015, Lucy has reported from major global sporting events including the Tokyo Paralympic Games and multiple European Championships, as well as Badminton, Burghley and London, to name a few. She has covered current affairs and sports news across the full spectrum of equestrian disciplines and racing, as well as human and equine welfare, industry news and court cases.