The last couple of races I've done have made a big deal about having your timing chip on the outside of your wetsuit to make sure that it's reading properly. Eh, it's a nuisance, but I can at least understand the request.
First race I did with that request, I forgot to take the timing chip off before I took my wetsuit off and had to put my wetsuit back on in order to get the timing chip off, before stripping the wetsuit again. Longest T1 of my life.
The race I did this weekend, I duly remembered to take the chip off before my wetsuit and then - see what's coming? - forgot to put it back on again. I left T1 chipless. So I had a registered swim time, but nothing else. Because I raced the aquabike, my race time should have stopped when I crossed into T2. Not realising that I had forgotten to put my chip back on, I racked my bike, changed my shoes, walked down the chute to get to the finish..... Crap, I have no chip to give back. I told the timer exactly what had happened, and went back to pick up my chip out of transition and turned it in.
This is the first time in 8 years of racing I've had any kind of a chip issue. The timer had me talk to a race official, which I did. I provided my overall and split times off of my Garmin. The time I ended up being assigned has absolutely no relevance to any of the splits I actually completed. Timing added ~13 minutes to my overall time and gave me the corresponding placing. The only thing I can think is that they added the length of time it took for me to walk down from T2, realise I'd not worn my chip, go back up to transition to get it, and then walk around trying to find the lady I'd already talked with to give it to.
My question is - what normally would happen in this circumstance?
I know that this is totally my bad for not putting my timing chip back on in T1, and I do appreciate that they did something to get me into the results at all. Churlishly, I feel like I'd almost rather be given a DQ or a DNF than given an arbitrary time which was almost 120% of my actual time, especially when I have the splits documented. Podium would not have been affected, but I would have placed ahead of 2 additional people in a division of 8, so a quarter of the field.
I'm just curious as to how this is handled at other races - say, someone loses their chip in the swim, or on the bike. Does that person get a time? Or a DQ? Or...?
First race I did with that request, I forgot to take the timing chip off before I took my wetsuit off and had to put my wetsuit back on in order to get the timing chip off, before stripping the wetsuit again. Longest T1 of my life.
The race I did this weekend, I duly remembered to take the chip off before my wetsuit and then - see what's coming? - forgot to put it back on again. I left T1 chipless. So I had a registered swim time, but nothing else. Because I raced the aquabike, my race time should have stopped when I crossed into T2. Not realising that I had forgotten to put my chip back on, I racked my bike, changed my shoes, walked down the chute to get to the finish..... Crap, I have no chip to give back. I told the timer exactly what had happened, and went back to pick up my chip out of transition and turned it in.
This is the first time in 8 years of racing I've had any kind of a chip issue. The timer had me talk to a race official, which I did. I provided my overall and split times off of my Garmin. The time I ended up being assigned has absolutely no relevance to any of the splits I actually completed. Timing added ~13 minutes to my overall time and gave me the corresponding placing. The only thing I can think is that they added the length of time it took for me to walk down from T2, realise I'd not worn my chip, go back up to transition to get it, and then walk around trying to find the lady I'd already talked with to give it to.
My question is - what normally would happen in this circumstance?
I know that this is totally my bad for not putting my timing chip back on in T1, and I do appreciate that they did something to get me into the results at all. Churlishly, I feel like I'd almost rather be given a DQ or a DNF than given an arbitrary time which was almost 120% of my actual time, especially when I have the splits documented. Podium would not have been affected, but I would have placed ahead of 2 additional people in a division of 8, so a quarter of the field.
I'm just curious as to how this is handled at other races - say, someone loses their chip in the swim, or on the bike. Does that person get a time? Or a DQ? Or...?