Chip time vs Gun time

[Thomas - SportChrono]

Hey fellow timer, 

I wanted to know what were your opinion for the chip time / gun time stats for the podium.

I know, that in official race the time to consider is the "gun start" for the winners. First to cross the finish line is the winner. 
But in my case, I use the chip start since it's more representative of the performance (in my opinion) 

Almost 99% of my customers want me to give them the podium with the chip time. Most of the time the rank are the same for the podium anyways. (runners who want to win are more likely to get in front of the pack for the start)

This week end, I had my first bad experience with it. The race director wanted the podium to be chip time and he always does. I always give them the choice and I explain them what is the difference between both time.

The first women two cross the finish line was actully second on the podium! She crossed the line less than half a second before the second (that start like 2 or 3 seconds after her)

We had a little fit during the ceremony, question about it for more than like 10 minutes after the race (from the runner), an email after the race.
And we had the right to a long long long facebook post about how it's not the way to proceed and that in the olympic it's the gun start and blahblahblah.

Like I said, I know that the "OFFICIAL RULES" take the gun time and that it's pretty controversial. The thing to consider is that we don't have a 50 feet start line. Our mats are 3.5m so it's pretty unfair for the runners who also want to win but start in the 4th or 5th row.

What are your opinion on that! 

[Papaya25]

Hello, in all our years doing the timing, we have never done the award for chip time to avoid problems of this type.
It is also true that in the official competitions and in the regulations, the award must be by clock time, the chip time is only a reference for the runner.
Even if you have a small start, it should not be a problem, as long as the runners know that it will be awarded by clock time.

Also for your help, if you use any manual backup, arrival photo or video, and you have some reading loss it is easy to get the lost time and position with the photos and video, since they will be clock time.

[Brian Agee]

You can have this same problem in reverse - where a race has a 'gun' start and chip finish and then someone starts late and throws a fit because their 'Garmin' shows them beating the overall winner or an age group winner. People management, providing education on how timing works, and diffusing someone's frustration is just part of the job unfortunately.

If you capture chip start times when it's not necessary then I would imagine you'd have more problems with this than if you did a simple gun start with a chip finish, because obviously it's more likely that people would notice that the results on paper do not match what they perceived happened at the finish line. Imagine being proud of yourself for gutting it out with another participant and finishing ahead of them and then the printed results show them finishing 20 seconds ahead of you. Your typical 'couch to 5K' participant thinks you made a mistake. When the race is small and there is no chip system at the start, most participants intuitively know that results are bases on the actual finish order. So you're much less likely to have complaints.

We don't ask or offer to provide a chip start time unless we feel the race is large enough to justify it. Typically 400+ athletes is where we'd start to consider it. Most race directors wouldn't think to ask for a "chip start time", but I'm sure that nearly 100% of them would say they wanted it if we gave them the option for it, whether or not it makes sense for their race or not. Often they're just as clueless as the participants when it comes to knowing net time vs gun time. If the start and finish is at the exact same location then we may do it just for the heck of it, primarily so that we have both times and so that we have a good idea of which athletes are actually on the course.

If you're going to offer it, then here are some recommendations:

1. It MUST be the race director decision!

2. If someone challenges you on it, make it clear that this race decided to base results on 'chip' time so that is what you did. Give a short explanation of what that means of course. If they're still upset, tell them to take it up with the race director.

3. If the race director catches grief over it, they can politely point out that the rules for this race was that results would be based on 'chip' time. When they signed up for the race, they signed up to follow the rules of the race.

[Springer Sport]

Hi Thomas,

In terms of athletic performance and fairness, I share your opinion!

Still, I would always stick to the official regulations for avoid post-event discussion and hassles. In addition, you are on the safe side in the event that participants who are relevant for the podium were not detected at the start line.

[Thomas - SportChrono]

Thanks!!

For my part I always tell the race director and give them the choice. But as I they always choose chip time (even if I tell them that the rules are for gun start) 

I will look into it if I change my way of doing it. I think there is not a good way LOL! If someone see his chip start and he is 5 seconds faster than the first runner he will be disapointed too.

All your point are good! I always take the runners order on a piece of paper too so it's a great back up if anything happens. Overall, it's way easier to award the time by the gun time... Way less variables!

Thanks to all of you

[JK Race Timing Systems]

Never chip,

Always gun time, Go by the regs in your country.

Because it is not the norm I would also ensure that the race is advertised as such ( Results based on chip time) so that there can be no confusion.

There is a reason why "Elites to the front " is always called out and you always have the dense startline, you wanna place then fight for it.

I dont think it will ever change, anything other that gun time is a time trial.

regards

JK