New technology to transform surf sport events

Surf Life Saving Australia (SLSA) and Australian sports tech company LiveHeats have announced a partnership that will see LiveHeats’ mobile-first technology platform used at surf sports events in Queensland, NSW and Tasmania during the 2022/23 surf sport season as well as at the Australian Championships.

The move follows LiveHeats having trialling its competition management and live scoring platform in Surf Life Saving competitions during the 2021/22 season with foundation partner Surf Life Saving Queensland.

The research and development included the integration of near-field-communication (NFC) wearable technology that allowed officials to use LiveHeats software on smartphones to scan athletes during marshalling and recording, streamlining the on-beach processes for creating draws, completing races, and presenting instant live results and point scores.

The 2022 Australian Surf Life Saving Championships on the Gold Coast saw the live deployment of wearable technology to thousands of athletes. After a successful pilot program SLSA and LiveHeats began discussing the potential of a partnership to make the technology available nationally.

Under the three-year partnership, SLSA will invest in making LiveHeats’ tech platform available at all levels of surf sports, from club level competitions to state champs and the Aussies.

LiveHeats will support the roll out, including education and training as well as developing tooling for a seamless data flow from SLSA’s existing systems into LiveHeats, streamlining on-the-beach workflows for officials, athletes, team managers and spectators.

SLSA’s National Sport Manager, Wayne Druery said the trial provided outstanding results for the organisation and how excited he was to begin the new season with the tech platform available for all events, stating “the LiveHeats platform made an enormous difference at the Aussies this year. It’s an event that has more than 7,000 competitors and 600 officials which is a mammoth scale to coordinate the administrative side and results.

“There’s no doubt that the efficiencies gained through the use of LiveHeats enabled last year’s Aussies to be conducted on-time, in what were difficult and testing surf conditions.

“LiveHeats allowed us to streamline and automate the marshaling process, taking the strain off our officials and had results available to competitors and the world as they happened. It’s something that will change our sport and we’re thrilled to have found a tech solution that supports what we do.”

LiveHeats Chief Executive, Chris Friend added “as a former Surf Life Saving competitor myself, I am overjoyed that LiveHeats will team up with SLSA to use innovation to push this iconic sport forward.

“The technology and our specialist understanding of surf sports will help the next generation of competitors, officials and spectators experience more streamlined competitions and data insights.”

Competitions can be followed at www.liveheats.com/slsa

Image courtesy of Surf Life Saving NSW.