Episode 26 - Interview with Sam Park, Manager from Daedo International

    In this episode we talk with Sam Park from Daedo, the history and future of the company and also about the issues at the 2022 World Championships

   In this episode, Coach César Valentim and Sam Park talk about one of the biggest Taekwondo equipment brands, we also talk about the issues occurred at the 2022 World Championships. We also get an exclusive inside on what's coming up with the Gen3 Daedo PSS, that is being released in the next couple of months.

   Listen to a friendly conversation that touches the most controversial aspects of these championships, how the electronic system is being developed and what we will see in the next version of Electronic Scoring systems.

   This podcast is supported by Hawkin Dynamics, Firstbeat Sports and Athlete Analyzer! 

 Visit our Instagram @taekwondopodcast and Facebook @taekwondocast 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Have you been looking for a TaeKwonDo podcast with qualified people who know what they're talking about, who help you keep up with everything going on in the TaeKwonDo world? Well, you found it. This is the TaeKwonDo podcast, TaeKwonDo News Competitions and other events, training and sports science, keeping the fans, coaches, and high performance athletes Up today with the latest news and trends on Olympic TaeKwonDo. Let's do this. This is the TaeKwonDo podcast. And now your hosts Coach Cesar Valenti team and Peter Nestle.

Speaker 2: 0:42

Hello and welcome to the Tedo Podcast. We're a podcast based Austria in English language. For everyone out there who likes the, in this episode, we talk with Sam Park Manager from Data International. Welcome to our podcast. I'm Coser with me, Sam Park. Hi Sam, how are you?

Speaker 3: 1:13

Hello. I'm good. I am right now in freezing Korea. We're under under 10 Degrees Centre, but, uh, yeah, just enjoying the cool weather and the Christmas Times.

Speaker 2: 1:33

Well, for as a disclaimer, I would like to say that the Teo Podcast has no commercial relationship with Dedo. We're not sponsored by Dedo. We don't own, uh, any money. It was no, uh, commercial or gift exchange for this podcast. Myself has a club, of course, I'm a client of Data International and, uh, local data shops, but that's as far as our business relationship goes. Uh, for everyone listening. Uh, Sam, could you please tell us a bit about yourself?

Speaker 3: 1:58

Yeah, so, uh, I am the son of the c e o and founder of the company Data. Um, I was born and raised in Spain. I have a degree in international business, and I have been working in the company since as a technician for the PSS and thousand. I have been doing more office work and, uh, being more on the product development side and the day-to-day management of the company.

Speaker 2: 2:41

Oh, I would like to thank you for your time to have a conversation with me on this podcast. It's a bit different to have one of our many chats in private and have the entire world listening to on it, but it's, I think many people are interested in knowing some more stuff about Dedo. My first tough question is, how do you say the name of your company? Dedo or?

Speaker 3: 3:01

Yes. Um, it seems like it's a global con confusion, right? Um, it's actually pronounced is, it's actually two words, um, from Korean, which is like when you say some, something is great or big, and though, as you know, it's a path away, and basically the name means the, the great way or the great path.

Speaker 2: 3:38

Well, that's answer the question pretty well. It's interesting to know that there is actually a philosophical background on the name. Um, I'm from Portugal, so Dedo is from Next Door, Spain. We have known your company all my life. So can you tell us how the company actually started?

Speaker 3: 3:54

Yes. Uh, my father, he moved to Spain in 1981, and for, uh, a bit more than two years, he had been, um, working somewhere else and he saw, like, there was an opening in the market for TaeKwonDo, basically. Um, most of the Spanish, um, TaeKwonDo, uh, they were making orders from Korea and they had to the whole order and wait for three months in order to, for them to get some to Spain. And he saw the quality, it wasn't that, uh, high, and he thought, you know, I could make it myself here in Spain and, uh, I could serve my clients right away instead of having, instead of them having to wait for three or four months and being uncertain whether it was gonna get to them or not. So in three, he, he some sewing machines from, from South Korea, and he started, he bought the fabric in Spain, and he started making basic to look with white color and black. And he started selling them, uh, locally at some point there was a World Championships, I think it's 1987, where, uh, he was, they did, was the, one of the sponsors of the, of the event. And that's where the company actually started to grow. And in 92, in the Olympic Games in Barcelona, uh, there was the official supplier of the TaeKwonDo equipment.

Speaker 2: 6:08

I re I remember those days. Yeah. I had, uh, yes, one of my, uh, early door box, uh, was actually a special edition Barcelona Dedo. We had the logo of the games

Speaker 3: 6:22

<laugh>. Yes. And that, that's where actually company became, uh, year<affirmative> and 2000, uh, I, I forget the dates, but then we became a recognized company for War Federation back then. And, uh, yeah. And after that, we just kept growing and expanding to other sports like karate, judo and, and you know, some kofu, et cetera, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 7:05

Yeah, you guys have a big assortment. Your online shop is pretty big, and you have a wide range of material from beginners to very advanced levels. Actually, the, some of my players, uh, have the used in the newest system, the door box, and the new equipment. And it's, uh, it's impressive to see the door book I had in the 1992 Barcelona. The addition we made of cotton and what you see these days also, uh, different materials, design quality of the equipment is, um, yes, it's dedo. It's known for, uh, being a high, high level and for most national teams and professional competitors using them. Um, Dedo has also been involved for over a decade with the development of electronic scoring systems, the famous pss, the protective scoring systems that, uh, electronic and helm vest and helmet that we see at, uh, Olympics and the, uh, international competitions. Uh, how did you get involved in that?

Speaker 3: 8:06

Well, um, it was, I think it was in eight, after the Beijing Olympics, um, president decided needed to implement system for scoring. And since then we had, uh, been looking for a partner to develop the, the p the what's now called pss. But before, before the system, we had, uh, we have now we had been working with, uh, another European company, but that system didn't, wasn't really, um,

Speaker 2: 8:54

Up to the standard,

Speaker 3: 8:56

Yeah, up to the standards for TaeKwonDo. You know, technology worked, but it didn't work for TaeKwonDo. So tru thousand and nine, or yeah, 2009 or two eight that he came up with a system and he presented it to, to Walter Federation. And somebody actually introduced him to my father because of course he had the technology and we had the infrastructure to be able to produce, so manufacture and, and sell and market the actual product. So that's where, that's when we signed a partnership. And, uh, basically since then, we have been producing the PSS ourselves and the development and all the new technologies actually come from, from the United States, from San Jose.

Speaker 2: 10:15

That's, uh, I remember having my first dedo scoring systems in January, 2011 when I bought my first ones, the first generation one. And then of course, in inside generation one, you would see different, uh, progressions, different gen, smaller generations and different versions where you would notice that they would have three dots, six dots, and then you would be able to understand, uh, which kind of, uh, alliteration of the vests were coming out and they were getting improved. And then in 2016, we had the, the generation two is how is this development done in terms of, I know we're getting very much into technology, but it is, uh, what our podcast is all about. Um, the, the duration too. There is of course a different set of, uh, sensors, but also the software is also being developed, and the software is being developed a lot. The rules changed, the, you guys have to put up a new software out there. And in this year alone, I guess we had a few different versions of the software. I've tried some better versions, and yeah, sometimes the version that even the stable version that is outside is not the same one used, uh, with the, at the Last World Championships. Um, can you tell us how you guys do it? How is who, who developed then the software and how do you guys came up with, uh, improving the vests, uh, so often?

Speaker 3: 11:37

Um, so answering to you first, uh, question about the, how, how we start, how we do the whole development of the actual hard hardware. Um, basically after World Championships in Chile, um, of course always on under high criticism, we, we got a letter from saying that we needed to change a few things from our system. So basically back then they said it was too easy to score, um, and, uh, that we needed to improve some certain points. So,

Speaker 2: 12:32

Yeah, remember at that time it was the, it was the monkey kicks and the

Speaker 3: 12:36

Scratches were, yeah, mm-hmm.<affirmative>, yeah, the monkey cakes and everything, which, you know, uh, honestly, personally, I think that that could have been, uh, stopped by changing the rules instead of us, you know, having to adapt the system to, to try to avoid those kind of kicks. But back then it was all about the pss, all the pressure was on, on us. So we had to come up with a new system for the, the final, the final in, by the end of 2015, I think it was in Mexico. Uh, so we only had about three months. We made maybe more than a hundred samples. And we came up, we, we came up with, um, with, uh, so, uh, that actually reduced the number of kicks scored by just tapping on the, on the, on the pss. So the kicks have to be harder, and, you know, you have to really put in your weight into the kicks, so it would actually score. And, uh, also we had develop new hardware in, like, in the electronic side, so new transmitters, new receivers, et cetera. And with that, we went to the Mexico, and it was a, actually the first time we were using it in a event. But, um, since it was an improvement, uh, people had to adapt, you know, but not many people are complaining about it because they, they, they saw that we were making an effort to improve and to make the sport better by making the technology being used in the sport better. Um, so usually that's, that's how we go on with the develop development. We make the samples, we test, we make the samples, again, we test. So we make around, um, maybe 150, 200 samples every time there is a new development. Uh, and we, we like to test it on the field. We test it in the lab, we test it on the field, and we make sure that it's a reliable before we start mass producing, making it marketable, marketable product. Um, on the other side, we have the software, uh, you were asking the software, how we develop it is basically world TaeKwonDo, the, the IT department. Um, they give us some software specifications and how we have to change the functioning of the, of the software. And with that, we work on it. And once we have the software ready, we test it and we look for any bugs, and we go back and fix those bugs. And then when we have something that's actually kinda working, and if we're in a rush to use it in a big championship or Grand Prix or championship, as long as it, those bugs are not really a big problem, right? In the, in the competition, we, we just go with it. If, if it's a big bug, then we a developer to change, make those changes as fast as possible. And then, uh, we usually, usually we come up with a workable version by the time we need to use it.

Speaker 2: 17:00

You've mentioned that, uh, the, the rules need to change to adapt to the pss, but most of the complaints we had even here at this podcast is that we think that technology should be adapted to the rules that WT puts outside. And then we've seen many times the rules, uh, fixing flaws in the systems. For example, every system out there has an issue with the face kicks, uh, because of course there's no sensors in the face. We have, uh, problems that, uh, the, uh, headshots are many times not scored, and we change the rules this time. We change them pretty well this year in 2022, and this is the last podcast of 2022, um, that, uh, coaches can ask for. The video will play again to the headshots. Do you think that, um, if the pss your brand and, uh, the competitors would be, and, and of course they will better than the, with the rules revert?

Speaker 3: 17:55

Well, um, one of the, one of the aftermath aftermaths of a coach being able to ask for when there is a, when there's a kick that looks like a head kick and it didn't score, um, is that the referees, you know, the video jury on the screen might think that there was a contact, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, there was a contact from the foot protector to the headgear, but there was no point. They, they think, well, it actually looks like it's touching. They, they look for, for another angle, you can't really see. They look for another angle. You can't really see. So, so they accept it, right?

Speaker 2: 19:01

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,

Speaker 3: 19:04

So is is that it looks like the head pss, so the head guard is not working because every time a coach ask for an unclear head point, right? If the jury doesn't see very clearly and thinks and assumed there was a, there was an impact, they will give the point.

Speaker 2: 19:40

Yeah. Most of the times we know that it's, um, even the foot touching the head, it didn't touch with the sensor part of the sensor feet. So the, as, as you know, the feet has, uh, some socks with some sensors, but there's not everywhere in the foot there that their sensors are, uh, attached to. And sometimes you hit with a part of the foot that doesn't have sensors. So we do understand that in those cases, it's, um, the point doesn't come up. Um, uh, that's a little bit, uh, situation that has to, to do with the development of the placement of the sensors in the, in the feet or the kind of technique used. Most players know where the sensors are, they know which kind of techniques they score, so they adapt the techniques to scoring in the PSS system. But, uh, again, psss have different systems. And when you touch, uh, some with some data system, um, on the vest or on the helmet with, uh, some parts of the foot, it will score. Others will not. Um, it's, uh, of course with other brands, it's different. So the players end up adapting to the system they're using to how they actually kick. Um, that's something that is the reality of the sport. It happens with the, uh, with the TaeKwonDo, and it's something that has been criticized a little bit, is that, uh, we are not standardized in terms of the, how the systems are out there each to make the main two brands that are, uh, recognized. They have, uh, very, very different technologies. And when you have to, to score with them, you have to adapt to the technology. And you don't see that in other sports. It doesn't matter what kind of, uh, fussball football, um, uh, brand, it's manufacturing, the football balls, they are all with the same specifications. You think that's gonna happen with the, the Latin and they make a standardization on, uh, on the scoring systems and make you guys, uh, the different brands competing out there to, to produce similar products?

Speaker 3: 21:29

Well, it's pretty simple for us. The issue, you talk about the foot, uh, sensors, um, basically it's was telling us where to put those sensors day. Mm-hmm. When we showed them, look, this is the, the placement. They say, you know, add this. No, remove that or add one more here, add one more there. That's, that's how we work. We don't usually come up with something and say, no, this is it, and you have to go with it. We adapt to whatever Walter says. Um, when it comes to standardization of this, of, of the pss, you know, there's some rules, right? There's some rules saying that when the foot, uh, under, under the, the ankle, right? Any, any area, any part of, of the foot under, under the ankle, uh, touches the protected part of the truck or the head. That's a point, right?

Speaker 2: 22:48

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>,

Speaker 3: 22:50

So in the rules, there's a, there's a thing that says a valid scoring area, right? When the foot touches that ballet scoring area, which is usually the color part of the, of the, of the vest, that's where, where it actually can score. Okay?

Speaker 2: 23:13

And when we talk, for example, about the, the system, the outer part of the foot, the<inaudible> doesn't have any sensors on it.

Speaker 3: 23:20

Yeah. So it's, it's easy as just adding more, it's, it's what I'm, what I'm saying. When, when we ask, um, when we ask Monte Kondo, you know, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? Back in the day when we were developing the gen, the gen two, we put the sensors where they are right now, because that's where everyone believed they should be.

Speaker 2: 23:52

So right

Speaker 3: 23:55

To, to avoid some kinda kicks. They were removed here, we moved there and added here, added there. I completely agree with you that any part of the foot should, should be scoring. And

Speaker 2: 24:11

I guess that's easy to, to solve if, uh, WT agrees with the placement of the sensor answers as you explain. That was a very, very extensive and clarifying, um,<laugh> answer to how the system works. We went all the way from manufacturing all the way to the socks. Um, well, that's how the system we have now. Maybe can you tell us about your plans for the future of pss?

Speaker 3: 24:36

Well, one of the main issues, uh, you know, with our system maybe is communication issues with the 2.4 GIZ system. Uh, so we are going to, we're actually developing on a development stage of, uh, new generation. And, uh, one of the things, um, I, I can tell you this because obviously the other company has already made a presentation on it. Uh, we have developed a punch system, a punch sensor, which is, um, with confirmation from the corner judges, and you can only score if you hit within a certain area of the vest, which is at the front, um, around the chest.

Speaker 2: 25:44

Yeah, I saw some videos. Saw some videos. There's a little square, um, on the vest where you are allowed to punch.

Speaker 3: 25:52

Yeah. So we, you know, we believe that the punch should only score on the, on a certain area if we, if we don't wanna make TaeKwonDo, uh, kickboxing basically. So we have developed that. We have developed also, um, a motion tracking, motion tracking as well, motion tracking system where if you hit with the front leg, it, it only gives you a percentage of the, of the full power that should be scored. If you, if you hit with the back leg, it, it gives you 100%, and if you hit hit with a turning kick, it gives you 25% more. So it, there still needs to, we need to do some fine tuning on that. But basically the idea is that athletes are gonna have it easier to school when they, when they keep with a back leg, with a back leg instead of the front leg.

Speaker 2: 27:14

Yeah. I've mentioned, uh, in one of the episodes, early episodes of these podcast that, uh, adding gyroscopes and, uh, uh, um, to the, to the socks and to the vests would allow them to the vest itself and the system itself to automatically identify turning kicks. Um, and of course, the, which one would be with the, with those gyroscopes, we'll be able to see if it's the foot hitting the vest or the vest hitting the foot, because most of the times the easy score front leg kicks is because you're just stopping the motion of the opponent. So basically u using the energy of the opponent to stop it, not to actually kick it. And those are developments on the sock sides. How did you guys get into it? You went to add changing the socks and the ver how did you guys do it?

Speaker 3: 27:59

The socks changed. Uh, the socks stayed the same. We changed the best. We added some sensors to it, so you can exactly how many degrees you were turning at what speed

Speaker 2: 28:15

We have stop someone is, I'm sorry, someone wrong it, he rang at the wrong door. That's the problem when you're doing the podcast from home<laugh>. That's why I like to do it at night. Um,

Speaker 3: 28:38

Yeah, I understand.

Speaker 2: 28:39

So that's,

Speaker 3: 28:44

Yeah, the socks, the socks we added sensor on the best. So it tells you exactly, um, how many degrees you turn at what speed, and obviously you can change the parameters. You can say you can allow it to detect the turn with a smaller velocity, or, or you have only detect the, the term when it's going at, at a certain speed. And, uh, that's the part where it needs a little bit of fine tuning. But I think we need to do like a field test and everything to make sure that what develop is made for TaeKwonDo and not TaeKwonDo adapting always to our technology.

Speaker 2: 29:42

Those are very big improvements. We see, uh, a big step up in duration three compared to duration one and two. The what about the helmet?

Speaker 3: 29:53

The helmet, um, I'm going to be honest with you. Okay. Um, when you do the test in, in a lab, you know, with a foot protector on your hand, as long as a foot protector can have more sensors on it, then the helmet will work almost 100%.

Speaker 2: 30:20

So I guess the solution is, is right there. So we have to convince world TaeKwonDo to allow data to have more, uh, sensors on the socks.

Speaker 3: 30:29

Yep. Um, the reason we didn't put as many is that there were some strange, uh, kicks coming from the Gen one that we, that TaeKwonDo and data wanted to avoid. So we didn't place as many sensors on the so of the foot, for example, you know? Mm-hmm.<affirmative> or on, because, you know, there are some kicks that there were, if, if we allow everything to score, uh, any cost, then you know, you, we will go back to gen one. And that's what people tr told us to fix when we had gen one.

Speaker 2: 31:18

Well, thank you, Sam. And yeah, and, uh, I think this is a very interesting, uh, explanation of on the system, especially, uh, opening our appetite for the generation three, especially the punches, the scoring, all the technology involved. And me as a, a little bit of a nerd, I'm looking forward to seeing those in action. We'll take a small break, and after the break we'll talk about, uh, what happened in Guadalajara and, uh, what we can do to, to, to fix it and avoid it in the next competitions.

Speaker 3: 31:52

Okay.

Speaker 2: 31:54

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Speaker 4: 33:16

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Speaker 1: 34:01

You are listening to the TaeKwonDo podcast. Now, back to your hosts, coach Caesar Valentien team and Peter Nestler.

Speaker 2: 34:13

So welcome back. Here we are with, uh, Sam Park from, uh, data International, and we've been talking about the p s s systems, and in the last two episodes, we've actually mentioned a lot of the issues with the World championships and your scoring system. That was really, really mentioned a few times. Can you share that? What were the issues you guys faced in gu?

Speaker 3: 34:34

Okay, so there is an actual report on the issues. Um, we had redacted by TaeKwonDo. Okay, so I'm not going read the whole report to you. It's confidential, but I'm actually, so first of all, I like to apologize to any teams or athletes who were affected by the problem problems we had and didn't solve within the reasonable time. Uh, we are sorry, we're really sorry. We apologize. We deeply apologize. And we, we take any responsibility of what really happened to the system. Um, and we take our job very serious. Seriously. We take, um, the, the matches and the whole competitions really, really, really seriously. And because it's our job, we, we have to do our best so that the sport survives. It's good for us, it's good for everybody. So again, really sorry for what happened if, uh, there are any teams that were affected by it. Um, so going through the actual report, ok. Um, one of the things that we have to mention is that the system had been tested for two, two days before, two or three days before the competition, before the actual competition actually started. And there was, they were working correctly. There was no problem with the communications, obviously the was empty. There was nobody there, there was no audience, there was nothing. So during the first, during the preparation days, we faced absolutely no issues. So I can confidently say that there was no any, there was nothing within the venue, uh, from the beginning that could affect our system. People say, could it be the, the humidity from the pool? Could it be, uh, there a, an antenna nearby? There was nothing literally on the preparation days and on, on the test. When came, when before World Championships, there was, we, we test, we tested everything, and it was working almost perfectly. Uh, also every day our staff was testing the, the vests and the head to make sure that there was no broken equipment and entering the field of play. So every day they were hitting and testing every single piece of equipment and making sure that every nothing was broken. And if it was broken, it was fixed. And if it couldn't be fixed, it was put away. That's how we worked during the whole week of the World Championships. Uh, the competition issues. Okay, um, one part of the comp of the issues we had were human errors. So, uh, on, uh, on two matches, on two matches in day one, one of the computers had the PSS basically disabled. It was put on manual mode to do some testings with the IVR system, with the O V R. And it was actually, it was left like that because, um, well, it was left like that because of a mistake. We, we should have checked it again, but, um, our staff didn't. So basically that made the on match two 15 and two 16 on day one, uh, we had that issue that there was no point scoring at all. And we, that, that testing, it wasn't done in the morning. It was done at lunchtime. So in the morning it was working well. And in, in the after lunch break, that's when, uh, we saw that there was a, a problem with a, with a, with a software. And that was fixed. It was late, but it was fixed. And, and people misunderstood. And they thought that it was all day working like that, but it wasn't. It was only one, one area. So court number two, only in two matches after lunch. And also another one of the errors, another human error we had is, um, the volunteers. They were, they were changing the volunteers every, every session and continuously moving volunteers from one place to another. So we trained every day. We had to train new volunteers to put the transmitters in the vest and the head. And there was, I think, one match on before where the volunteers put the transmitters in the wrong colors. Even though they had stickers with their colors and everything, they, because there's always, there was always new volunteers coming in without any knowledge on how do this, uh, job, they did a mistake. And then, you know, there was a, a match, which was match three 15, where they put red and blue in the opposite color,

Speaker 2: 41:46

But that you can see during the test.

Speaker 3: 41:49

Yeah, but nobody saw no

Speaker 2: 41:52

<laugh> then It's not only there to blame, it's also the coaches, the players, the referee. There's a lot of people that

Speaker 3: 41:58

Were, yeah, yeah, it's, um, get confused during the test, you know. Um, but anyway, uh, our staff, uh, didn't pay enough attention, I guess. And, and you know, there's a general confusion on whether it should be the blue or the red one coming up when you kick the blue. Of course, when you kick the blue,

Speaker 2: 42:25

The blue should, should light up. Yes,

Speaker 3: 42:26

Should, should say. Okay. Um, then we had the, some system errors. Okay. Uh, I'm gonna be really, really frank about what happened with court number three in day one and court number four. On day two, we, we had, we actually prepared the Olympic system. Um, so basically working in another, in another frequency, we had prepared maybe five, no, was it five competition areas? Yes. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, and of course the transmitters and everything. Uh, transmitters and receivers were different, but the wholes and headgears were the, were the same. So, um, when we were using it on, uh, as a test, we're hitting, the headgear was working well. Uh, there is a 0.5 second delay, just like in Tokyo, Olympic and Paralympic games. There is a five second delay on the headgear, which is something we're working on. But, uh, there was a problem in the coding of the, of the receiver that made all the values of the, of the vest only go up percent. What it should be. We could happen, we, we didn't, our staff, they're, they're not developers. Developers are in the States, right? So we thought there's no, there's no problem with the, with the vests and head care, because we test them every day. So when they were saying that they're not scoring, they're not scoring, uh, we thought it was the the best. So we changed the best. And when you do the test, you know, even the minimum value will say, okay, so the test was fine, but then during the match, the points were not scoring. Cause they're only scoring up to 30% of what they should normally score, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So with one click, instead of having 20 gig level, you have six.

Speaker 2: 45:26

Yes. A big difference. Yes. Because it doesn't say if they don't score with the threshold necessary, um, the system doesn't recognize, doesn't recognize the contact, but doesn't recognize it as enough contact threshold, uh, a contact power to, to open the, to reach a threshold that it's needed to score a point.

Speaker 3: 45:42

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Yeah. So basically we, we found out that issue. So on day one, we put the system and then, um, we took it out. Basically, we weren't feeling very, very confident about it, but we, we hadn't found out that there was a problem with the, with the heat level. Cause there were, we didn't do as many matches for us to realize. And it wasn't a problem that we were aware of because we thought if we're testing the vest every day before we send them out to the, to the organization, then why would there be a problem with the vest with the sensitivity of the vest, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So we, it, it was a, it was a new problem for us. Uh, it was an unknown issue. Um, and on, on day three, on on day two, that's when we found out that the, the Olympic system was not giving right heat level for the body protector, the vest. So we took it out. And on day three, we actually solved the issue during the day, and after we solved it, we started implementing one area to, and, and then expanding to four areas. The reason why we work so hard to put the, the Olympic system and not the usual two, four gig system, is that from day one, we're having not many issues, but we're having some issues with connectivity and was nervous on, uh, on the wireless communication performance of the two, four on, we have issues with connectivity and on as well. That's when we, we really pushed to use the Olympic system, um, and that's the day we actually fixed it, and we, so we could implement it on day four. Um, on the actual report of, you know, after checking all, all the videos of all the matches, you can see we had some issues, but the, our response to those issues are usually, usually pretty fast. Okay. So you can actually see which match had which problem, right. And there's not, there's not a big list of matches that have problems, if you know what I mean?

Speaker 2: 49:13

Yes, yes. I was there, uh, and I, I saw, I saw your staff, uh, always, uh, next to the courts, fixing every, uh, connectivity, uh, issues, immediately replacing equipment then when necessary, you guys were right on top of it.

Speaker 3: 49:29

Yeah. So the issue we're having with AZ was, um, we were, when we, when we turned off our equipment, we could still see a strong signal on the channel we were using.

Speaker 2: 49:54

So you understand that? You think that's manipulation, external manipulation?

Speaker 3: 50:00

Well, I, I really have no proof. Okay. It's, it's a way to, it's a way to explain it, but I wouldn't put my hand proof signal in where there should be no signal and cause of, of the number of wifi networks and hot personal hotspots from, from other, all the teams. And everything is the only, is the only channel we can use, which is, which was empty, right? So during the preparation days, it was empty, and from day one to day seven, you could still see the signal, even when we turn off our equipment, you know, and we usually don't find these kind signals in, in championships. So, and I

Speaker 2: 51:13

Know some teams took their own psss with them for practice. Uh, could that be the, the issue?

Speaker 3: 51:18

No, they were, they were quite far. The, the ones that they had their own pss, they were maybe on the, on the warmup area. Right,

Speaker 2: 51:28

Okay. That's, uh, even outside of the venue.

Speaker 3: 51:31

Yeah. So that, that couldn't, that could never be an issue. But, you know, it was something that we couldn't explain because we, we couldn't go through everybody's bags or, you know,<laugh>. I understand that our system should be working even if there's something, and that's what we're working on. We know our vulnerabilities, but also it's not understandable that we had that strange signal from not even from day minus one. It's from day one to day seven. So even if it wasn't, um, someone trying to manipulate our system, there was something which was causing interferences in areas four and five. Okay. And that's, that's what led us to, uh, push to use the, the Olympic system because, you know, it's much harder to, to interfere with, uh, in a, in a frequency when you don't have the same equipment, right? So, yeah. Um, that was one of the, the, the biggest issues we've had. There's, uh, as I told you, there's a, a list of matches that had these problems, but it's not a big list. Maybe it's four or five matches in total. The big issue is that we lost the trust of all coaches, and between the coaches, you know, anything that they saw and didn't like, they, they said, you know, it's a system's fault. We, we shouldn't be using a system that's failing, blah, blah, blah. Um, I just want to remind people that we have been Olympic for the last 10 years, so all the Olympic games and, and many Continental, we used our system with no big issues. And this time, you know, if there wasn't, if there wasn't something or someone trying to interfere on purpose, there was still something interfering with the system. And, and that led to, you know, many, many, maybe too many, right? Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, maybe too many errors, uh, on the, on the field of play,

Speaker 2: 54:45

To be honest. It was not only the pss, there was also issues with video replay. There was issues with the, um, implementation of the rules. So you are not the guys to blame for the mistakes that happen, especially on the first three, four days.

Speaker 3: 55:00

Um, that's something that I wanted, I I wanted to comment. We talked before about, you know, the change of the rules and how, how you could now ask for, uh, video replay, right? When, whenever there's a kick on the face, but or on the, on the, on the head and the PSS didn't score then. So from many, from many watching, a lot of them, the final decision was maybe different from what I would've given, don't wrote down the match numbers in when I, first of all, the frame rate wasn't the best. So there were some parts where you to was no frame in between that captured the moment of the touch, but most of them I wouldn't have given, for example, when they're hitting with their shin instead of their foot, right,

Speaker 2: 56:55

Exactly. Because it's not an allowed, uh, contact area.

Speaker 3: 56:59

Exactly. It's not an allowed contact area. But even then they, they were giving them, you know, they were giving the, the, the video replace accepting them. The acceptance rate of the whole championship is almost 50%. You know, when before the acceptance rate of the video wasn't so high, I think that led to a lot of people thinking that the headgear wasn't working. Of course, there were some hits that didn't score because we had communication issues, not because the head wasn't scoring, you know what I mean? Head was score was registering, but it wasn't sending the, the point to the computer because we have connectivity issues, you know?

Speaker 2: 57:58

I understand. Mm-hmm. Any other big issues you found out?

Speaker 3: 58:04

Made us look like they were not working? Because video were accepting almost everything the first few days

Speaker 2: 58:14

Know to be, to, to be fair, if the helmet registers the score, but it doesn't transmit it, it is an equipment issue,

Speaker 3: 58:21

Of course, of course. Which was solved when used areas that was solved. So

Speaker 2: 58:36

Any other big issues that you found, uh, that you're facing gu?

Speaker 3: 58:41

Um, there was, uh, maybe two when the report, when the, when, when what it says in the report of, of TaeKwonDo regarding Phantom Points, there were maybe two matches with Phantom points.

Speaker 2: 59:17

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, phantom points. For those who don't know, it's when the point shows up, but there was no registered contact.

Speaker 3: 59:25

Yeah. The rest, they, they said there was no kick, but there was a kick. And the camera doesn't capture the exact moment of the touch, but it registered the point. So, uh, you know,

Speaker 2: 59:44

So it's not really a PTO point, it's just a, a camera issue.

Speaker 3: 59:49

Yeah. And then maybe perception issue, you think it didn't score, but, you know, um, apart from that, you know,

Speaker 2: 59:59

Oh, that's, we haven't, It's an extended list and extensive, and I actually thank you very much for going through it because it clarifies all the questions we had, uh, from these world championships. And if the, if you still have any questions, I can always ask the listeners to leave some comments on, uh, Instagram. We are reading it every day. We, we didn't reply to every comment, so thank you, Sam, for, uh, facing the issues with that, uh, that you actually had in Guadalajara and explaining it to us. Um, is there anything else you would like to share with us about other plans, new technology and equipment we might expect to see in the next month?

Speaker 3: 1:00:36

Well, hopefully we will come up with a, with the Gen three, maybe by March or April, and hopefully we'll be able to test in on, on the field in a junior open championship, or we still have to, you know, see what we can do or we cannot do. But, uh, as far as I know, we're not allowed to test the Gentry on a senior, uh, G rank championship, so we'll probably have to first a junior and that it's working. Then hopefully we'll have approval, uh, for, for us to use it in a, in a senior open championships.

Speaker 2: 1:01:44

You've, uh, also acquired some companies and you have some other equipment. Are, are they gonna be launched to the public?

Speaker 3: 1:01:53

Um, we, we are, we have, we found a partner to do IVR with, uh, IP cameras. So a relatively cheap, uh, IVR system with, uh, 20 frame frames per second. And with a software especially made for TaeKwonDo ivr,

Speaker 2: 1:02:27

For those who don't know, the normal, the normal frame rate for television, uh, will be between, uh, 25 and 30 frames per second, and cell phones will be around 60 frames per second. So having a 120 frames per second is a very high resolution in terms of, uh, the speed of the image captured and the quality of the image.

Speaker 3: 1:02:49

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, so we'll have maybe under two cameras, maybe under 4,000 euros. And, you know, I say relatively cheap because other IV systems that are specifically made for, uh, TaeKwonDo, they require, you know, buying the software, which is a license, and then buying the cameras and, you know, all the cameras in the end, they end up costing around six to 8,000 in total, including the, the system. But we'll have everything, uh, almost a, a plug and play system that will be connected to our tkri software to be able to see, uh, and tag all the, all the, all the points and the, and everything IV replace screen.

Speaker 2: 1:04:06

That's a very interesting, uh, uh, technical solution. And we'll also consider reusing it for, uh, um, integration with other softwares. For example, I use monitoring systems that also do video analysis. Will, uh, you have the, uh, options to export the tagging or the time codes and all these things directly?

Speaker 3: 1:04:26

Yeah, that's, um, as long as we get a formal request, we can have a look at it and develop for, develop anything to meet the needs of our customers. Of course.

Speaker 2: 1:04:43

That's a very interesting, uh, development, uh, especially with integration with the TK Strike. Uh, any other new technology you expect to see?

Speaker 3: 1:04:54

Um, maybe not within the next few months, but, uh, we're also working on O V R.

Speaker 2: 1:05:11

O V R is the on value results management system. Basically it's the tournament management systems, the software registration management of, uh, file match list and publication of results.

Speaker 3: 1:05:23

Yeah, so we're currently working on VR system that make available to as many people as possible. Um, we'll make it affordable and we'll make it easy to use so organizers can have, they can have access to, to an system that actually works and is easy to work with, basically. Yep.

Speaker 2: 1:05:58

So new generations invests video replace systems, uh, venue management systems. I think deto comes up with a one one-stop shop for organizing tournaments. That is, uh, something we're looking forward to. Um, thank you, Sam. It was a pleasure being here with you and with everyone who is listening, this was the TaeKwonDo podcast. If you haven't already, listen to our other episodes that are available wherever you listen to your podcasts. We are releasing new episodes every Tuesday. Stay tuned to subscribe to the podcast, leave us a positive review and share to your friends. See you next year. See you next time.

Speaker 1: 1:06:33

You've been listening to the TaeKwonDo podcast, keeping the fans, coaches, and high performance athletes up to date with the latest news and trends on Olympic TaeKwonDo. Your host coach Caesar Valenti team has almost 20 years of experience with high performance TaeKwonDo and has worked all around the world as a TaeKwonDo trainer. Peter Nestler has been teaching TaeKwonDo for more than 20 years, and he's currently one of the top referees in Europe. We hope you enjoyed the show. Make sure to like rate and review, and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, find us on Instagram at TaeKwonDo podcast on Facebook at TaeKwonDo cast and the website TaeKwonDo podcast.com. See you next time.