In Reply To:
I'm not sure about the large monetary reward, but I think that recognizing the middle of the pack is a fun idea.
If the reward is worth shooting for, then people will find a way to game the system. As one poster pointed out, this could result in a mad wait/dash at the finish line. Even a median place reward could be worked out with spotters and result in a comical finishing chute pararde amongst those motivated enough to figure out they are in contention.
One idea could be to reward the person who finishes half the half, in half the winning finish time, where "half the half" is defined as the midway point of the bike course. Looking at your results last year, this rewards the 40min (swim+T1) person who rides 19mi/hr for the first half of the bike ride which is a pretty fair representation of the MOP. Participants won't know the winners finishing time at that point, so short of paying a ringer to win the race in a certain finishing time, they couldn't rig their result. If that is a concern, you can put a timing mat somewhere in the middle of the bike leg but not the exact middle, or even put several mats out there without revealing which one is the real one.
OK, too much time on my hands today!
I guess it could be gamed but it just doesn't seem like that is what most people would do. Maybe anyone walking within sight of the finish line clock could be disqualified from the prize. It might be possible to know about what the mid time might such that one could try to increase one's chances but people are usually finishing fast enough at that point in the race that it would be difficult. If this turned out to be a problem maybe, in the future, he could make draw a random time plus or minus 5 minutes and make that the "half fast" winning time. If he is worried about it he could do something like that this year. In that instance, gaming would not be realistically possible if one didn't know what the "error" was going to be before the prize was awarded. Probably doesn't have to be exactly the half time to qualify for such a "reward" of such a name. It would be best, to increase participation at the awards ceremony, if people did not know who the winner was before the award was given.
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Frank,
An original Ironman and the Inventor of PowerCranks