Ines Rudan, Author at Elevien

VIDEO: Elevien real-time scoring tested at the European Gymnastics Championship 2023

Written by Ines Rudan on April 21, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

We at Elevien believe that each judge in the world should be able to judge any type of competition from the comfort of their home as simple as playing a video game on their phone, because simplifying and clarifying the judging process with digital solutions will help transform and popularise gymnastics. During the finals of the European Gymnastics Championship 2023 in Antalya, Turkey, we witnessed a huge step forward in this direction.

Andrew Tombs (Vice President of FIG MAG Technical Committee and Executive Director of Sport, British Gymnastics), Tom Thingvold (Vice President of the European Gymnastics Federation) and Nikolaos Provias (Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee Member, European Gymnastics Federation) used Elevien app to test our real-time judging feature on a high-scale competition.

The video below showing Andrew, Tom and Nikolaos using Elevien for real-time scoring on Parallel and Horizontal Bars at the European Gymnastics Championship, best showcases how this innovative feature works:

With this feature, we’re solving one of the main pain points in the current judging process — it is often very manual and slow. In most cases, judges write down each deduction on paper. Then they need to sum up the deductions and enter the final scores in an Excel sheet or a scoring system, and repeat the same process for each gymnast’s routine.

There have been different attempts to improve this process in the past, but none of the tested solutions worked properly nor were reliable. With Elevien, for the first time in history, there is an opportunity to revolutionise the gymnastics world.

“Easy to use and intuitive”

“Great to be involved in a first test of Elevien real-time judging with European Gymnastics MTC led by Mario Vukoja. Really easy to use and intuitive.”

– said Andrew Tombs, Vice President, FIG MAG Technical Committee and Executive Director, Sport, British Gymnastics.

After the testing, Tom agreed with Andrew and said that “it was extremely promising”.

As Andrew mentioned, Mario Vukoja (Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee President, European Gymnastics and Vice President of the Croatian Gymnastics Federation) led this testing initiative at the European Gymnastics Championship 2023. Mario has been with Elevien since its early beginnings and is one of the co-founders and ambassadors of our startup.

Arturs Mickevics (Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee President, FIG) and Dmitrii Andreev (Men’s Artistic Gymnastics Technical Committee Member, FIG) are also driving forces behind the idea to “include the audience in the judging and improve the gymnastics viewing experience”. Supporting Elevien is a part of that mission.

Tailor-made design based on judges’ feedback

The live-scoring feature has been part of the Elevien app from the very start, however, as we continuously tested it during various competitions and carefully listened to the feedback of our users, we recently updated it by making it simpler and easier to use.

Previously, when judges were scoring in real-time in Elevien, it was a bit challenging to simultaneously enter the deductions and watch the routine. With this fresh new design, it is now possible to be fully focused on the gymnasts’ routines and at the same time enter the deductions, without even looking at the phone while doing it.

Among many other gains of Elevien, here are just a few benefits that this specific feature brings to gymnastics competitions.

Shorter duration of competitions

Digital, real-time scoring speeds up judging, as it eliminates the need for retyping the scores from paper into an Excel file or any other system. The current most time-consuming step – scoring and calculating deductions manually on paper, with Elevien is completely skipped, shortening the duration of judging, ergo the whole competition.

Transparency and a better understanding of judging

At the moment, most of the fans, or even gymnasts, don’t fully understand the rules of judging gymnastics routines. In the near future, we will build this feature up further: on the videos of the individual routines (that are already available in Elevien), the judges’ deductions will appear on the exact parts of the routine where they were made. This will enable greater transparency and a better understanding of the judging process and help bring the sport closer to the fans.

More learning opportunities for gymnasts and coaches

With a real-time scoring system complemented with videos, gymnasts and their coaches can deeply analyse their performances, learn and improve their skills faster, by simply rewatching the videos of the routines and having insights into each specific deduction made by judges, as never seen before.

Elevien team dedication

Getting recognition from prominent and experienced persons in European and global gymnastics community is something we have been working hard for, and we couldn’t have made it this far if we didn’t have an amazing, dedicated team behind Elevien.

The new version of this feature was designed and developed quickly and we successfully launched it in time for testing at the European Gymnastics Championship. Shoutout to the whole team, that will continue to develop and improve this feature.

Version 1 is currently available only on iOS as a Beta, feel free to check out how it works! If you were added as an E judge to a competition, tap the “Judge” button and then tap on the stopwatch icon in the upper right corner to turn it on or off.

We encourage you to try it out and share your feedback with us at [email protected] so we can keep on perfecting it!

Control Training Season Is On: Here’s How to Maximise Them With Elevien

Written by Ines Rudan on February 1, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

In our many contacts with National Federation members from all over the world, the Elevien team has learned that all of them have similar challenges when preparing for World Cup events. One of them is the complexity and costliness of Control Training sessions and similar qualification events, which are mandatory for every gymnast that aims to compete in the World Cup events.

Complex and costly logistics

Although it’s nice to gather with colleagues and peers every so often, travelling 3 or more times a month to do one short competition can be tiring and time-consuming.

The judge jury consists of people who know the gymnasts well and are often members of the same club.

If you’ve ever tried organising Control Training sessions remotely by sending videos via WhatsApp, you know how hard it can be for the Organiser to collect all the scores, copy them into an Excel file and do the calculations manually in order to publish the final scores and let gymnasts know if they qualified or not. It can get very complicated and the waiting time for official results is long.

Each control practice requires a certain amount of funding from the Federation to cover the participants’ travel expenses (sometimes even accommodation costs). Wouldn’t it be better if you could spend those funds on more productive uses?

How Elevien maximises Control Trainings

As a unique platform for gymnastics which improves the organisation and management of competitions on any scale, as never seen before, Elevien offers a complete solution that solves all of these challenges regarding the qualification events. Here are the main benefits of utilising Elevien for Control Training sessions.

1. More efficient allocation of the Federation’s funds

Optimize the budget of your Federation and Clubs by reducing travel costs for having all the gymnasts and judges in the same gym. This will allow for a more strategic allocation of funds towards costs that truly matter.

2. Remote and unbiased judging

In the Elevien app, you can easily add international judges who do not know the gymnasts as well as your national judges, therefore giving you a more objective and unbiased score. All you need to have is their phone number. When they login into the app on their phone, they will see their judging assignments.

3. No room for mistakes: automatically calculated final scores

Once all the judges have entered their scores, you will automatically get the final score along with the ranking of the gymnasts – no need for Excel sheets and manual work, Elevien does that for you in accordance with FIG rules.

4. No need to spend more time travelling than practising

Every gymnast can compete from their home gym, their coaches record their exercise directly in Elevien with their smartphones and the video is immediately available to all judges for scoring.

All of these benefits are not just a pitch, we already have many satisfied users who have recognised the practicality and usefulness of Elevien for this particular case. One of them is the Portuguese National Federation whose Technical Director organised their Controls and covered them in Elevien for both Seniors and Juniors:

“The Portuguese Gymnastics Federation used Elevien for the Control with MAG and it was very useful to us. Judging and watching gymnasts’ performances with the app is very easy. We had some judges judging from home which was really useful since they didn’t have to travel. Also, Elevien gives us the opportunity to rewatch the competition and analyse performances together with coaches and gymnasts.”

André Nogueira, Technical Director, Portuguese National Federation

How to set up your next Control in Elevien?

We pride ourselves in having an extremely user-friendly and easy-to-use platform, so here are all the instructions in one single image. No additional onboarding is necessary, but if you would still like some support, our team is eager to help with the setup and answer all your questions. Just email us at [email protected].

How to create Control training in Elevien

Easily share gymnasts’ performances with anyone

If your gymnasts wish to show the videos of their performances in Elevien to their families, friends, club members, or anyone interested, you can easily share the link to the Control Training directly from the app via WhatsApp, Viber, SMS, email or any of your preferred communication channels. You can post the link to your Social Media or Federation website and thus allow more people to watch your team’s success.

Related blog post: Why Elevien Is a Game-Changer for National Gymnastics Federations

Why Elevien Is a Game-Changer for National Gymnastics Federations

Written by Ines Rudan on January 24, 2023. Posted in Uncategorized.

As we strive to keep enhancing our platform and bring it closer to everyone in the gymnastics world, our team is on a mission to meet as many gymnasts, coaches, clubs, organisers, judges and federations as possible. On that mission, Elevien CEO Tomislav Grubišić and Customer Success Manager Marija Franjul recently visited the Slovak National Gymnastics Federation (Slovenská Gymnastická Federácia) and introduced our application to their members at a meeting in Banská Bystrica.

Revolution of gymnastics as never seen before

The team was excited to share why Elevien is a game-changer for National Gymnastics Federations and demonstrate how easily the application can be used on a national level. It was met with great interest and excitement, as it showcased a complete revolution in gymnastics: organisation and management of online, offline and hybrid gymnastics competitions on a national scale, as never seen before. This greatly expands the reach and accessibility of gymnastics competitions, allowing more people to participate and engage with the sport.

The Slovakian members of the Federation were also excited to see how the Elevien application allows easy management of scoring, results, and rankings, and streamlines the organisation and administration of competitions. Here’re a few more takeouts from the meeting that we also wanted to share with our readers.

Elevien and Slovak National Gymnastics Federation

These 3 types of competitions are the future of sports

There are three types of competitions that are the future of gymnastics, and they can be fully covered in Elevien.

1. Offline competitions

Traditional, existing format is brought to the online world and easily accessible to a wider audience. The best example of how it is done is explained in this blog about the great success of Elevien at the international tournament in Novi Sad, Serbia in December 2022. The number of spectators who watched the competition in the Elevien app from all over the world was 10 times more than the number of live audience there had ever been in the gym.

Elevien enhances traditional competitions by streamlining the process of organisation, providing judges with an easy-to-use tool, helping discover new gymnastics talents, providing financial benefits to all key user groups, and enhancing the global appeal of the sport.

If you want to organise this type of competition on Elevien, our team will be more than happy to take over the logistical part of recording it and entering all the scores. This way the Organiser doesn’t have to do anything in addition to their regular activities — our team handles everything in Elevien so you can just go about your duties as usual and reap the benefits of having your competition in a digital format. Here is an overview of the steps to achieve this:

2. Hybrid competitions

This type is a combination of in-person and remote participation. Some participants, mainly gymnasts and judges, are in the same physical location, while some judges are participating remotely, either from home or any other location. This allows a wider range of participants and flexibility in organizing competitions.

The best use-case is Control Training sessions that every gymnast does when preparing for official competitions. The ability to record and rewatch their performances in Elevien, thereby learn from their mistakes, helps them improve faster and reach their full potential.

3. Online competitions

A completely new competition formats, where all participants and the audience are engaging remotely, from their own locations. This means that whether a gymnast is competing from their home gym or a remote location, they are able to participate in an online competition anywhere in the world. The same applies to judges, coaches and audiences.

Furthermore, online competitions can be held simultaneously between multiple clubs or federations, making it possible for gymnasts from anywhere in the world to compete against each other in real-time, and for audiences to watch the competition live from different locations.

Numerous benefits for the community and the sport development

Elevien is designed to benefit National Gymnastics Federations and their members, as it is an ideal solution for federations looking to improve the organization and management of competitions and increase the reach of the sport. Here are some of the most important advantages of this innovation:

Equal opportunities for all. By enabling gymnasts to compete remotely, it is fully accessible and affordable for them to participate in competitions, regardless of age, abilities, financial situation, location or other criteria.
Cost and time efficiency. The app-based scoring and video-recording system saves time and cost for organisers and can also provide a more efficient way to score and record gymnastic competitions.
Increased coverage, audience and reach, as well as seamless accessibility and engagement for audience members, friends and family, who can now watch and track results in real-time or after the competition, from any location.
Additional opportunities for gymnasts to improve their skills and advance their careers, as coaches can now easily review their trainee’s performances and provide them with more effective feedback.
Increased fairness in scoring, as the video-recording and scoring of each gymnast’s performance through the app provides a transparent, clear and accurate record.

It’s no surprise that many are interested in exploring this innovative solution for gymnastics competitions. If you would also like to learn more about it, don’t hesitate to reach out to us! Email us at [email protected] — our team will happily organise a meeting and get you on board.

Related blog post: Control Training Season Is On: Here’s How to Maximise Them With Elevien

Author: Ines Rudan