Can anyone tell me why many races have two timing mats at the start and finish line? I’m assuming the first mat starts one’s time, but I want to make certain. Thanks.
It is a redundancy thing. The timing mats will pick up chips like 99% of the time. Adding a second mat makes it very unlikely that someone will sneak by without the computer picking them up at one of the mats. Interestingly enough, only one of the mats is the true start and one mat is the true finish line if you happen to get missed by the real starting line they will calculate an average time that it took to get from the first mat to the second mat and correct the time to what it “should” have been.
As mentioned, it’s redundancy. On the start mats, they don’t track the real start times, unless it’s a running beach start over the mats. They are there to capture that 1) you entered the water, and 2) what wave you entered the water with. Everyone in your wave is given the same starting time, which is written down when they fire the gun or yell go.