Eliminate in water starts and provide chiptime starts as opposed to Gun time starts for IM distance and 1/2 IM distance events.
Bare with me here for a moment;
If the RD had several start chutes leading up to the waters edge and placed timing mats at the end of the chutes near the waters edge, the entire field could be spread at the very start over a 10 to 15 minute period (or longer if required). The pros have their own start area and are started ahead of the main field. Everyone else lines up in a 1/2 dozen or so lanes leading to the start. At the designated time the gates are opened and the main field enters from the line up. This will spread the field out more quickly. If the pack is spread out more quickly then the main field will exit the water over a longer length of time leading to less congestion on the bike course and providing less opportunity for athletes to become bunched up and give the officials a level chance at penalizing drafters. If chiptime starts works for 20,000 + runners in a marathon why not at the swim start for a Tri?
I think it could work for the masses, but not at the front end of the field, unless you could be sure the start order was truly ramdom. The real competitive folks wouldn’t go for it. Friends of similar swimming ability could agree to work together on the swim, an advantage that others in the race would not have.
I’ve never done the race, but Memphis in May does a time trial start, similar to your idea. Anyone care to comment on how that works to spread things out?
Those first out of the chute will have a longer time to beat the 17 hour cutoff. So that means the slower AG’s that probably start in the rear and have that much less time to beat the clock. How much time are you allowed before crossing the mat? Those who are faster would still have to thread they’re way through a crowd somewhere along where the course comes together. Plus there might be some unfreindly pushing trying to get through the chute. The beach starts wouldn’t work at Kona.
I have participated in all forms of swim starts including the mass IMFL '02 and RD’d the first ever chip triathlon with wave starts as well as RD’d a swim start time trial. The wave start was with 1300-1200 and the time trial was with 200.
From this perspective, all short races should be TT that can afford it and ALL larger races should be wave starts. Period. Safety is the first and last point to consider.
No one can tell me there is a safer plan.
Any comments?
ST
as for timing and mates…it is simply impossible to do for our timing equipement…that would required SPORTSTATS a crazy amount of mates and the bigger we can cover is a wide of 8 meters…nothing more…the biggest marathon start with a 8 meter wide chute…
to have 6 starting area would make the cost of timing triple just because of this…
it seems simple like this but a lot more complex for the timing logistic…
now…if you dont want a chip time start but just given a time start from when your respective wave gun goes off…that would be a lot more easy to do…
If you had a 8 meter timing mat could you not place four 2 meter lanes across the mat? Picture LP, with the chutes starting from the Transition area and following the same path of flow normally used for the swim exit and migration to T1. One starting area but all the athletes will have to enter a que, much like the line up for airporty security.
Mahalo
If the time cut off starts after the last athlete crosses the start mat and adding a caveat that all must be across the mat in x number of minutes before the cut off time commences. If the slower AGers start at the back this will lead to less congestion (maybe). Any faster types that get bogged down in the start line procession will have the entire swim to overtake the slower athletes in the water that started ahead of them. or will be passing a bunch of folks for the 1st hour on the bike which happens now for slow swimmers who can hammer on the bike.
I’ve raced Memphis before and thought it worked very well. I really enjoyed it and it is a really flat bike course, i.e., the kind of course that typically you’ll see draft packs and I didn’t see any drafting going on.
Also had a ber truck with taps on it after the race, tons of food and Elvis. Makes me want to go back just thinking about it.
unfortunutly, to go from a 8 meter by 2 meter configuration to a 4X 2m by 1m isnt possible…very risky to miss on some chips and also required 2 additional digibox and 2 ears…so about 50 000$ more of equipement just for that configuration… we already need over 7 other systeme for the race so it s very complicated overall to do so.
but your idea is interesting and i m sure a solution could be easly find…i dont think you need a chip start time, it s basicly waves that you are talking about…that dosnt required mates at the start…
also just as a info… at every ironman, you can notice that we force everyone to walk over a few mates as you enter the swim starting area…this usualy happen 15-20 minutes before the race and we make sure everyone as to go over the mates to get into the start box/beach. we do so only to have a accurate count of how many competitor will take the start so as people exit the water, we can keep track of how many people are out and how many are still in and if we are missing anyone at the end of the swim… but for timing puspose…we only use the time of the day when the gun goes to start the chrono…
Then the first person accross the finish line isn’t necessarily the winner it he?
jaretj
How about giving everyone a cap color depending on their recent IM swim time or calculated from their recent 1/2 IM or OLY swim time. Make the starting order dependent on the cap color. This should also make it posible to eliminate the separate pro start. Everybody starts with those swimming approximately the same speed.
The problem is that the crowded swim is part of IM. I mean it is tradition, and you can’t F*^$ with tradition. If you were to start TTing swims or doing waves, the same guys who rail against the mass start would be proclaiming their superiority for having done it ‘back when there were mass starts’ and in the sport of IM we cannot have anything like that. -there are too many ego’s involved.
Plus yuo get this whole other element of can he/she make up the TT start lag, was there drafting on the swim then. etc. etc.
On top of the fact that drafting on the bike cannot be solved by TTing the swim, and this is why - Packs will develop on the swim. Heck, I am a strong swimmer and i know enough to hang on sombody’s hip if they are fast enough. You will get big groups coming out of the water and still you will have big groups on the bike.
I think that a mixed wave could work, say men and women, and about 10 min apart. That sould spread out the course, and give enough room on the road. But remember you will still lose the midnight cut off and any ‘racing’ inter age group.
Or you can give the racers more road, or have less racers (like 1000).