Confusing Race Results, is it the TT swim start?

Sprint race this weekend had a TT start. After I finished the race, my results said 3rd place AG. I dropped to 4th place AG when someone else finished faster than me (even though the people ahead of me in my age group started and finished before me, somehow I dropped back one spot). During the awards ceremony I was announced as the 4th place racer and received the 4th place award medal. Here’s the real confusing part: the results online are saying I actually got 5th place in my age group. What gives?

Was it chip timed (I’m assuming so)?

If that’s the case - it could simply be someone starting “late” (i.e. everyone crosses the line at the start of their TT and they waited a bit before doing it for whatever reason). The gun time wasn’t their actual start time. It happens.

Also, errors in timing (that were later fixed) could be the culprit. Could be a bunch of stuff.

Pretty sweet race that goes 4-5 deep in the Age Group for awards at a Sprint

It was a great race. The RD typically goes 5 deep for awards and he puts on great events.

The results are just confusing because it was chip timed. I started in the 5th ‘wave’ and the top 4 finishers in my age group started and finished before me. So there must have been a mistake in the timing prior to the awards ceremony.

If someone in my age group, in this case the 1st place winner, finished 3rd overall in the race… is he ineligible for age group awards?

It depends on the race. Some people say overall people get overall awards, other people say that they can take 1st overall and get a 1st AG award too. It varies and depends solely on the race promoter.

Timing errors happen. It could be that there were errors that were fixed after the race finished - or it could be that the timing people didn’t include the overall place winners in with the age group winners and were directed to after the fact.