To the list:
In the thread on the European Cross Country Championships a few days ago, the timing company involved in producing the splits was erroneously and reopeatedly identified as Championship Chip. W-R-O-N-G. The timing was done by Winning Time, an Italian company which has an American branch in Colorado. This is the technology which was used for all the road races at the recent World Track and Field Championships in Edmonton. One of its advantages is that it is very good at determining that several An article written just before Edmonton for the IAAF Web Site (www.iaaf.org) reads in part: "When it comes to the road races -- the marathons and the walks -- Seiko and an Italian company called Winning Time have jointly developed a transponder-based system that times and records the 5km splits of every competing athlete. It uses a lightweight, weather-tight transponder chip carried in a Velcro ankle bracelet. At each 5km point on the course, the athlete passes over a mat which contains an antenna that sends out a signal to the athlete's chip and receives a the athlete's identifying code in return. This is matched to the athlete's time and recorded, and can be displayed on the stadium scoreboard less than a second after the athlete crosses the mat. Like the flash timer, these splits are not official. But they're almost always accurate within a second." Actually, I believe they're a lot closer than "within a second," probably within 0.1 second in most cases. One of the advantages of Winning Time's technology is that it is able to read and distinguish between several runners crossing the split mat at almost the same time. This is especially important, of course, in longer road races, where it's important to know if each finisher actually covered the entire course. I'm not sure about other companies' ability to do this as well as Winning Time does. I understand that Winning Time will be used in the upcoming Houston Marathon. I hope to be there and check it out for myself. jim dunaway
