Federal Way Police Department (FWPD) Cmdr. Kyle Sumpter is back on the History Channel this spring as a competitor in the show “Top Shot All-Stars” competition. The all-star competition brought back 16 of the show’s finest marksmen — those who, while not winning the title of Top Shot, made it to the later stages of the competition and came up just short.

Along with Sumpter, Kent resident and Season 1 competitor Kelly Barchand was selected for the all-stars competition. Sumpter is a competition marksmen and a longtime veteran of FWPD, while Barchand is considered one of the best long-distance marksmen in the world, having competed internationally with the U.S. National Rifle Team.

All-star competition is structured differently than previous seasons, as host Colby Donaldson said before the first competition in this week’s season premiere.

For this season, the competitors will not be broken out into teams, and the “Nomination Range” has been taken out of the competition.

“(This season is) all about skill,” Donaldson informed the competitors before the first competition of the season. The all-stars are fighting for $100,000 and a Tahoe Q5i speedboat, and of course, the pride of winning from the best of the best that the show has so far assembled.

Sumpter said he was a little saddened to not have the team competition for this season, but, as a competitive marksman, was also happy with the fact that the “Nomination Range” had been taken out of the show.

“It’s all skill-based. You shoot straight, or you’re gone,” he noted.

For the first competition, Sumpter and Barchand and their fellow competitors navigated an obstacle course to three shooting stations. The three firearms for the first competition were the SVT-40, a Russian gun that was popular during World War II; the Larue Tactical OBR; and the FAL ISS, a firearm preferred by United Nations peacekeeping forces.

Sumpter, who came into the season nursing a hip injury, said the obstacle course as the first challenge was daunting.

“The very first challenge is going to involve running, climbing, crawling?” he said wryly in a phone interview. “Everything I had hoped to not do was involved in the very first event.”

For Barchand, the obstacle course was interesting, especially the part that required a belly crawl under barbed wire.

“There’s an explosion, there’s a fireball, this is crazy,” he said on the show.

Even with the various elements of the obstacle course, both Sumpter and Barchand had respectable finishes, with Sumpter finishing in 2:21, and Barchand taking first place at 1:26.

The two competitors who had to fight for their survival in Episode 1 were Sumpter’s fellow competitor from Season 4, Greg Littlejohn, and Gary Quesenbery, one of the final three competitors from Season 3. In the end, Quesenbery won a challenge involving grenade launchers, sending Littlejohn home as the first competitor eliminated for the all-star season. For Sumpter, seeing Littlejohn eliminated was bittersweet.

“I hated to see anybody from Season 4 go. When we got there, it was like a family reunion,” he said.

However, the viewing audience was apparently happy to see Littlejohn go, Sumpter said, because of the reaction of the viewing party Wednesday night at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Federal Way.

“When Littlejohn was eliminated, the place erupted in cheers. Obviously he was the guy the audience loved to hate,” he said.

Heading back down to California and the “Top Shot” camp was something that Sumpter said he was happy to relive, especially when the competitors learned they were part of the all-star competition.

“I felt so privileged to be back, that was the overall feeling I had,” he noted.

Check it out

“Top Shot” airs at 7 p.m. Wednesdays on History Channel HD. For more information and content, visit www.history.com/topshot.