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gun or chip time to win
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No argument at all here. As plenty of others have said, it's first from point A to point B wot wins. End of.
"At the GNR thsi year he was off an running 15 minutes before I got to the start line.. AND he didnt even pause to slap ant n Decs hand!"
I misread that at first as he didn't pause to slap Ant n Dec. Which is worth, ooh, several minutes onto my time, especially if I get several goes at them.
Groovy - you're like Canute trying to hold back the tide here. You're in the wrong sport.
Take up Cycling Time Trials - riders go off every minute at some goddawful hour of the early dawn, from some bleak and desolate layby where even psycopathic truckers and doggers fear to tred.
Fastest time wins.
Also, chip times have not been around long.
It didnt make any difference before they were available, anyone who wanted their own 'mat to line' time started their watch when they crossed the start line.
Chip times simply do that for you...nothing more. They are for personal info only!
Parkrunfan chip times aren't for personal use only though are they? My GFA time for London was based on chip not gun time
Cougie I think yuo've helped me make a point (I'm sure you'll disagree). Was the event a race or a time trial? Assuming that the event had too many people to all line up on the start line at once some obviously would have to be behind it. therefore they set off at different times not with a man in a dodgy mack with a stopwatch saying go but an electronic chip.
For information (I'm sure someone will come up with a different definition) to me a race is where all competitors start from a start line at the same time and race to a defined finish line. Time trials are same start line with people starting at intervals to a defined finish line
Groovy I think you are confusing the VLM race organisers (who in terms of GFA only have to answer their own requirements) with official athletics bodies.
You can get into GFA with a time from an unofficially measured course after all....
Groovy - I'm not sure I follow your point about the GFA times. VLM can accept whatever evidence they want about what times you have run previously, they could just accept your word for it if they so wished. Since a chip time shows the actual time you ran the distance in I cant see any reason why they wouldnt accept it for that purpose.
But what does that have to do with the point under discussion? Chip times are for personal info in relation to how quickly you ran from A to B, nothing else!
There is no definitive answer to this is there - fairness is a subjective concept and you can argue which is better both ways. Personally I side with the majority in that gun time provides a better measure of who wins because it's more obvious - the competitors know if they are leading the race and it allows for competitors to use that information to alter their race strategy or for motivation - but you can make a logical argument that the person that covers the course quickest is the winner too.
So long as the rules are clear before the start it's the perogative of the race organiser to decide the criteria for who wins - just that chip time would have a number of consequences that I would take away some of the tactical elements of racing which for me would be a negative (or at least it would if I was fast enough to be in the shake up to win a race).
Popsider - There is a definitive answer, it is written in the rules of athletics!
I dont see how you could run a race 'under UKA rules' if you wanted to come up with some daft new way of deciding winners.
And one of the consequences of doing so would be that the 'race' would be avoided like the plague by anyone with an ounce of common sense.
Why is fairness a subjective concept? You either play by the rules or you are playing unfairly - the rules are clear.
It's the 2012 Olympic 10,000m final. Three Kenyans, 3 Ethiopians, 3 Eritreans, 3 Tanzanians, 3 Qataris who used to be Kenyans, and one plucky Brit. On their marks, when the plucky one notices that the laces on his Dunlop Green Flash are undone. He ties them as the gun goes, but he's all fingers and thumbs and starts 10 seconds behind the rest.
Luckily for him, it's a tactical race, no pacemakers and the Tanzaniana are marking the Kenyans, watched carefully by the rest, and the pace is modest compared with the 22 minute pace set by the Kenyan WR holder, paced by a moped under new IAAF rules just weeks before. Brit is able to spend a few laps catching the back of the group, and looks spent, but hangs on as the rest race tactically, waiting for the first move.
Two laps to go, the pace picks up. Brit has stuck with the group and moved up a few places when the Kenyan WR holder makes his move, followed by the Ethiopians. Brit gives everything, cheered on by the home crowd, and hangs on for another lap, but he's tailed off on the final lap and struggles down the home straight, finishing 9 seconds behind the winner in 5th place. A brave effort.
But wait, what's this? There's a bloke in a blazer running across the stadium waving a rule book. Apparently a little-known clause allows the organisers to award medals based on chip times, and low and behold, a British Gold Medal! Uproar from the Africans, but rules are rules.
But CD that would require a rule change...which would be dismissed as unfair.
I get the sense of what you are saying re: fairness and rules (i.e. just becuase its the rules doesnt make it fair).
I think PRF was saying in this case its in the rules because its fair, not its fair because its in the rules...
parkrunfan Sorry if I didn't explain myself so I will try again.
My gun time was 3hrs 15mins 20 seconds. Chip time was 3hrs 13mins 41seconds. I had to get under 3hours 15 mins for FLM (as it was then) to grant a GFA place. FLM accepted the chip time not the gun time as the bona fide time I ran the distance and I got my place. So it's not only for personal use but used by VLM and I'm sure many other race organisers as your actual time and therefore your qualifying time for GFA/Championship or whatever places so chip times can be very imoprtant.
Curly 45 I may stand corrected but I don't think you get a GFA place from anything other than an officially measured course.
I agree that we are straying from the point a little but the point I'm trying to put accross is that in a lot of cases chip times are regarded as the true time the race was run and as such should be the times regarded for positions and prizes which is what the OP was asking. Whilst someone a while back quoted the rules that state that gun time is the time that counts I'm saying that the gun time rule,where,chips are used, is not a fair and just rule. Chips are almost invariably used where not all contestants can line up on the start line in order to start together (see my previous post).
*lol*
Nice race report, CD!
I was just trying to give an example of why awarding prizes based on chip times would be unfair.
Using chip times for VLM qualifying is fair enough, you're not competing against anyone else for that qualification. For prizes, however, you're obviously competing against others for those and believe it or not, those are often raced tactically to a certain extent with an eye on what your rivals are doing. It would be completely unfair for someone who led the race from start to finish, effectively pacing the rest, to be 'beaten' by someone who crossed the start line later and used other runners to pace them to a fast time.
I'm curious to know which races you run. Almost all road races don't have everyone toeing the line at the start, yet it's only the biggest races that can afford to use chips that allow timing across the start line. Starting at the back of many club races might mean 20 seconds to cross the line, without chip timing being used. Chips are usually used to make life easier at the finish.
CD Sorry missed your post I like the story but there are a few problems obviously. Firstly the plucky Brit was on the start line at the same time aws all the others and therefore as they all started together it's gun time so he loses. Taking your story,however, plucky Brit is forced by sheer numbers to start 8 seconds back from the start line and finds his green flash trainer lace undone and wastes another 10 seconds doing it up.Still manages to come in 5th with a chip time 7 seconds behind the winner then yes he should win, not because of his trainer laces but because he had to start 8 seconds back because of the number of runners.
Parfrunfan I'm not saying about the races really I'm saying that the rules should be changed to say that where chips are used they are the times that should count for placings and prizes. It would then be up to the organisers of races to choose if they wanted to use them.
Groovy - Fully undersatnd what you're saying, but VLM accepting a chip time for GFA purposes is nothing to do with race wins/prizes. Basically, VLM not too bothered - if you had a reasonably common name and could find a results list with someone with the same name you could use it for GFA purposes. Its not as though you're getting much, its only a race entry.
This is never the case - the ony 'true' time a race is run in is the gun time. Chip times are irrelevant.
CD - Good race report, I can see that happening in the marathon too after plucky brit no.2 is delayed at the start by 15 minutes after consuming a dodgy kebab at Fat Stavros's Klassy Kebabs in downtown Stratford the night before.
Sorry groovy but did you not understand the bit in CD's race report where he mentioned the modest pace at the beginning, due to the race being tactical? How can it be justified to give a prize to someone who started a few seconds behind the rest, sat in for the majority of the race but faded at the end when the pace picked up and the superior athletes started really battling it out?
I also refer back to my example of what might occur if people knew from the outset that chip timing would be used to work out places and prizes. In a typical local club race many competitors will recognise their main rivals. Bob is approaching the start line for the 10k and sees Frank doing some strides. It doesn't look like Frank has spotted Bob so as Frank takes his usual place on the start line (he's allowed to do that, he'll run under 32 minutes), Bob starts about halfway down the field. It'll take 20 seconds to get over the start line but congestion won't be an issue cos the park paths are pretty wide. Best of all, Frank won't even know Bob's in the race till Bob catches him up at 4k, by which time it's too late to do anything. Thinking there weren't any serious rivals in the race, Frank took things relatively easy in the lead group, knowing that he could pull away on the second half. But here comes Bob from nowhere!... He'll struggle to surge away and lose him off his shoulder till the final kick, but there's no way that's worth 20 seconds. Frank crosses the line a good 20 metres ahead of Bob in a valiant last thrust, but Bob wins the race.
Is this fair? And even if it was (which it isn't) what does this do for the spectacle of racing?
This actually reminds me of the time when F1 tried using cumulative times after a safety car, ie using the combined times for the pre-safety car part of the race and the post-safety car part of the race.
The result - nobody had a fucking clue what they were watching!!!!!!!
Groovy are you being deliberately obtuse here ?
I don't think you can equate being in UKA rules and being fair.
Not every race is run under UKA - I raced my kids on the park the other day but I didn't cry foul because the course hadn't been measured by a certified course measurement officer with a trundle wheel.
Cougie quite possibly but having been refferred to (not by you) as too stupid to tell the difference between a race and a time trial I'm trying to show that sometimes the edges get blurred . Maybe all "races" where competitors can start together on the start line should be listed as races where thert are too many to be able to do so as time trials.
Two pence worth (well it is a time of austerity...) mass events are indeed the only way this claims any degree of fairness...given the diabolical nature of where a good runner can be held up at the start by some keen "slower" runners who have decided to ignore the recommended start pens..you often find them zig zaging their way through the field...
tis a bit unfair if this person's place is seen to be "slower" than someone who finished ahead of them on gun time, just by way of being of having the advantage of starting several minutes ahead.....hardly a measure of who's faster..
I agree with the rebranding notion of chip times events being "time trials" rather than races outside of the elite runners and fast club runners at these big events....
The example of a 10k track race blurs the edges even more Groovy, as those on the line, but furthest away from the inside of the track will have to run further as they make their way across the track to the inside edge. Maybe being in a 2nd row would give them more of an advantage?
I agree BDB although I believe that the start line is a little curved to help negate the extra distance.
Cougie having thought about it not sure if you mean by obtuse being deliberately dim (in which case no) or difficult (in which case possibly) which is the usual meaning when people say it to me.
But what does "where competitors can start together on the start line" mean? Do you really mean everyone gets to put their toe on the line? Are you suggesting that someone standing immediately behind Gebresellasie on the start line of the Olympic Marathon could lose to him by inches in a photo finish yet be awarded the race?
There's another error inherent in chip timing anyway. You've probably noticed that there are two mats at every timing point during VLM. This is because a proportion of chips aren't detected by the first and will be picked up on the second. So chip times from two people in the same race aren't necessarily measured from the same start & finish point. I've had this happen in a race myself - a sprint finish (not for first place I might add, but there was a prize involved) against someone who I beat at the line, but the initial results from the chips indicated he had finished before me. Fortunately they had someone taking the order in the finishing chute so they could adjust the finishing order. There was no chip recording at the start, the error was solely down to chip recording at the finish, I'd obviously missed the first receiver.
D'oh! Forgot about that
Agree with the majority view on here that, for places, the gun time is the fairer measure to use. In the circumstances described in the OP the woman who crossed the line first may well have been capable of picking up the pace had she realised she was in a 'race' with the woman behind her. The onus should be on the woman who finished second to start in the appropriate place.
However, as CM2 stated, in mass participation events for the bulk of the field chip time is a more valid measure of how well they have run. Kicked-It has illustrated this nicely with his example from GNR. My concern is that the use of gun time encourages slower runners to start too near the front and, unlike C Dave I don't like dodging round slow runners for the first mile of a race.