BBerryPowerUser
Active member
I'm a multisport Race Director and an Ironman Triathlete. I think smart technology for endurance sports (Running, Cycling, Swimming) is one of the greatest things to happen for endurance athletes. However, I do have issues with athletes that want to argue with me about their finish times. They tend to take their watches and iPhone running apps as Gospel, and they want to know why the chip timing system is off by a second or two VS their personal timing device.
That's not accurate. The question they should be asking is why are their smart watches and apps off by a second or two. Professional chip timing systems cost tens of thousands of dollars (and I know this first hand) and they are accurate to one thousandth of a second. That 0.000. They link to satellites for GPS precision time accuracy and there is never a question of accuracy IF the chip is read. My particular system is used by the Olympic Committee for Olympic timing, so I would not question the accuracy.
Where these personal systems come in handy is for training, and for competition when the timing system fails, usually for a missed chip read. Even the best systems do not guarantee 100 percent chip read accuracy. Sometimes chips are missed by the transponder decoders, sometimes the chips themselves in bibs or on ankles go bad and do not transmit, sometimes you can accidentally block these chips with body parts or with clothing if you wear heavy clothing over your BIB or Ankle Chip. It's nice to have a backup just in the very very rare instance that your chip is not read. I've seen missed chip reads mostly from athletes crossing the finish line, crossing their arms over their BIB numbers (and thus the chips as timing chips for runners are usually attached to the back of BIB numbers). They cross their arms over the BIB to shut off their smart watches. By doing so, the arm blocks the chip read about 1 or 2 percent of the time. That's one or two chip reads out of 100 being blocked by covering the chip with a body part.
Most Race Companies use HD Video on the finish line synced to the race clock to reconstruct a time if the timing system failed to get a read on an athlete chip. It's one of the reasons I plead with athletes to wear their BIB on the OUTSIDE and ON THE FRONT so the camera can see the bib as they cross. Murphy's law, if they do this, their chip will read right 100 percent of the time. If they wear the BIB on their back, they are temping fate and Murphy and his law will crawl out of the cave to rain on their timing parade, making it tough for a Timer to reconstruct the time for the athlete since he has no idea who the person in the video is, since they do not show a BIB number.
As an athlete, I use Runtastic, Mapmyrun, and a few others for my training. Race day, I rely on a GPS watch and the chip timing system of the race company.
That's not accurate. The question they should be asking is why are their smart watches and apps off by a second or two. Professional chip timing systems cost tens of thousands of dollars (and I know this first hand) and they are accurate to one thousandth of a second. That 0.000. They link to satellites for GPS precision time accuracy and there is never a question of accuracy IF the chip is read. My particular system is used by the Olympic Committee for Olympic timing, so I would not question the accuracy.
Where these personal systems come in handy is for training, and for competition when the timing system fails, usually for a missed chip read. Even the best systems do not guarantee 100 percent chip read accuracy. Sometimes chips are missed by the transponder decoders, sometimes the chips themselves in bibs or on ankles go bad and do not transmit, sometimes you can accidentally block these chips with body parts or with clothing if you wear heavy clothing over your BIB or Ankle Chip. It's nice to have a backup just in the very very rare instance that your chip is not read. I've seen missed chip reads mostly from athletes crossing the finish line, crossing their arms over their BIB numbers (and thus the chips as timing chips for runners are usually attached to the back of BIB numbers). They cross their arms over the BIB to shut off their smart watches. By doing so, the arm blocks the chip read about 1 or 2 percent of the time. That's one or two chip reads out of 100 being blocked by covering the chip with a body part.
Most Race Companies use HD Video on the finish line synced to the race clock to reconstruct a time if the timing system failed to get a read on an athlete chip. It's one of the reasons I plead with athletes to wear their BIB on the OUTSIDE and ON THE FRONT so the camera can see the bib as they cross. Murphy's law, if they do this, their chip will read right 100 percent of the time. If they wear the BIB on their back, they are temping fate and Murphy and his law will crawl out of the cave to rain on their timing parade, making it tough for a Timer to reconstruct the time for the athlete since he has no idea who the person in the video is, since they do not show a BIB number.
As an athlete, I use Runtastic, Mapmyrun, and a few others for my training. Race day, I rely on a GPS watch and the chip timing system of the race company.
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