Blog entry from 2020-03-25
Indication of source & original article: KURIER, 2020-03-24, by Christoph Geiler | https://kurier.at/sport/warum-am-billardtisch-trotz-corona-wettkaempfe-stattfinden-koennen/400789997
The coronavirus has almost brought sports to a standstill. There are practically no competitions across the planet, most athletes spend their time in isolation with home training. In a sport, of course, the balls still roll.
Billiard player Jimmy Riml had a thrilling three cushion match with a Dane at the weekend. On Monday, the Tyrolean then challenged a German competitor. Riml did not wear a face mask during the matches, nor did he disinfect his hands after every shot. He just pretended that his opponent wasn't there.
And the two competitors also haven't been. Jimmy Riml played in Innsbruck, the Danish Kim Bengtsson in the small town Store Heddinge, an hour's drive from Copenhagen. It was a game at eye level (final score 1:1) - the two only were not face to face. "At the moment it is the only way to do sports with and against each other," says the Tyrolean.
How it works?
An invention by the Tyrolean and modern technology make it possible for carom billiard players from all over the world to play with each other. If you have installed the MYWEBSPORT system at your billiard table.
A highly sensitive camera is attached above the billiard table, which takes 50 pictures per second and exactly follows the path of the balls. This data is transmitted to the opponent in real time, where a laser draws the exact position of the three balls on the table. And billiard fun is guaranteed.
The players are also connected via a headset and on a screen via livestream and can therefore communicate with each other like in a normal billiard match.
Jimmy Riml has been working on the perfect implementation of MYWEBSPORT for a decade and a half. The former national champion applied for a patent for his technology in 2008, and his billiard tables are now located in half of Europe and even in South Korea.
The original purpose was primarily for training. In the past, the best carom players had to travel across Europe to meet an opponent at eye level. In the meantime, they can duel at any time because all the games are archived and the laser technology is now so sophisticated that the route of the balls is also drawn on the table. And the system is also used for game analysis: old games and certain game situations can be simulated.
Good for the environment
Meanwhile, Jimmy Riml sees another positive effect of his invention. Using the schedule of the German three cushion Bundesliga, he calculated how much time billiard players spend in the car to get to their matches and what impact the trips have on the environment. "If you play the games through our system, you can save 20 tons of carbon dioxide. The environmental concept will become more and more important."
The installation of the technology costs 7,500 euros, plus fees for maintenance and usage. And Jimmy Riml is now thinking one step further. When Ken Doherty visited Innsbruck last year, the Irish former world champion in snooker (1997) was enthusiastic about the invention. In contrast to carom billiards (three balls), snooker has 22 balls on the table. "Technically, it is no problem to follow the route of 22 balls," says Riml.
