All posts by: andrew@rfidtiming.com

One of the worlds largest mountain bike races timed with Ultra

Grenserittet

The annual Grenserittet is an 80km mountain bike race that runs between the border of Norway and Sweden. The race finishes close to the famous 350 year old Fredriksten Fortress. This year the 6700 starters were timed with Ultra and disposable transponders for the first time by Danish timing company Ultimate Timing. Just under 50,000 split times were recorded over the course and Morten Toft from Ultimate reported that there appeared to be no more than 3-4 missed times from all these split points. Further photos and posts can be seen on the Facebook page. The combination of mat and side antennas ensures a robust timing solution alongside the convenience of disposable low cost transponders. It is no surprise that Ultra is now becoming the benchmark for mass riding events around the globe.

RFID in Paris

Triathlon de Paris

3251 age group triathletes competed in the annual Paris Triathlon on July 8 in the center of the famous city taking in a swim in The Seine and passing within meters of the famous Eiffel Tower. There was also a separate elite sprint race for some of the world’s best who were fine tuning their speed prior to the London Olympics. The race was timed by Ipitos using both the Ultra UHF disposable tags and the HDD System using conventional ankle tags.

Ultra Debut in South Africa

The new disposable tag timing system Ultra had its debut in Durban, South Africa at the SPAR Women’s 5/10km on Sunday the 24th June under clear skies. Over 15,000 runners, mainly women competed over two distances in an event that is run in 6 locations around South Africa throughout the year.

The simplicity and reliability of Ultra was clearly demonstrated with superb read rates on a single tag that costs less than 15c each. Ultra was a clear standout against the other timing manufacturers because of the low price of the transponders that can be sourced from many 3rd party vendor. This was crucial to SPAR (a large retailer), who purchased the equipment for their events, because entry fees are traditionally low in South Africa. Hence the timing  budget is always tight despite the need for quality service. RFID Race Timing Systems is proud to be the first disposable tag timing system to be accepted into the mainstream South African sports market.

UltraTag and Motivation Man in Florida

The new reusable UltraTag were used at the Motivation Man Half Ironman and Olympic Distance Triathlon on the 2nd of June 2012 in West Palm Beach, Florida. AccuChip Race Timing said the new reusable UltraTag performed great and set-up of all gear took less than 2 hours because no cabling was required between systems with wireless transmission of data. Race Organizer Steve Tebon was extremely pleased with the timing and mentioned that AccuChip nailed the event. The photo is of winner John Reback (brother of Laura Bennett who is racing for USA at the London Olympics) winning the Olympic Distance event in a very eighties pose with no shirt.

REWE Teams Challenge Dresden and Eventyrløb Denmark

Wednesday the 23rd May saw 7350 runners complete the REWE Team Challenge in Dresden Germany. Using a combination of mat and side antennas, timing principal at Baer Service Andreas Bär reported an incredible 100% read rate at the event meaning zero queries afterwards. The Ultra System is quickly becoming the timing system of choice in Eastern Germany with the best value disposable transponders on the market combined with the power and precision of the operating hardware.

A week earlier Ultimate Timing also reported 100% reading at the finish line of the Eventyrløb in Denmark – 2, 5 and 10km running events on their Kristi Himmelfartsdag (Ascension Day) public holiday of May 17th. That meant not one of the 20,368 finishers was missed at the finish line which really is an incredible statistic for a passive transponder that costs just 12 cents (Smartrac Dogbone™). Morten Toft of Ultimate Timing reported that they were very pleased with the performance of Ultra which outperformed the older Mylaps low frequency equipment used last year.

HBF Run For Reason 2012

With perfect Perth weather on Sunday 27 May, the 2012 HBF Run for Reason attracted over 20,000 runners, walkers and joggers for the annual event. Staged over the 14km or 4km distances, participants succeeded in raising over $720,000 for the affiliated charities making their way along the scenic Perth CBD courses.

BlueChip Timing timed the event using the ULTRA system from RFID Race Timing Systems. The low profile mats and the power of the ULTRA system make a great combination for large participation running events. Mass starts are no problem with the readers able to sustainably reads of over 300 tags per second. This is the third year ULTRA has been used at the HBF Run for Reason and the organizers and athletes love the simplicity of low cost disposable transponders.

You can see more photos and video of the event at the HBF Run for Reason site.

2012 Busselton Ironman 70.3

The weather gods relented on Saturday morning 5th May 2012, opening a window of opportunity for the 2012 Busselton 70.3 Ironman event – The largest half-ironman in Australia!! Thunderstorms and heavy rain the night before painted a bleak picture for competitors, however with the last showers disappearing before dawn the sun was out for the event. The wild weather was not without consequence with an onshore swell making the swim conditions tough for the modified 1.8km course.

BlueChip timing has timed this event for the past few years and were prepared for almost anything. Using RFID Race Timing equipment, Stuart Fuller and his team managed a combination of products for the event. All competitors were issued a low frequency transponder chip and read by the HDD for the swim and run legs, while the ULTRA combined with disposable tags on a bike seat sticker monitored the cycle leg and splits. Using the ULTRA in this way negated the need for mats on the cycle course with side antenna capturing the action.

Congratulations go to  Ironman 70.3 Busselton Champions for 2012 – James Hodge and Felicity Sheedy-Ryan.

Check out the great video footage here.

RFID ULTRA and the Flying Pigs

Over the weekend of the 5th and 6th May 2012, was the running of the 14th Cincinnati Flying Pigs Marathon. In the prelude to the main event, the 10km, 5km, the  Flying Pig Kids’ Marathon and the Flying Piglet Kids’ Fun Run were held on the Saturday and totaled almost 10,000 competitors in the lead-up to the big event. On Sunday the marathon and half marathon distances attracted just under 20,000 bringing a record total for the weekend to 30,993.

In almost perfect conditions Josh Drew from the End Result Company timed the races with RFID Race Timing’s ULTRA systems. ULTRAs were used at the start, finish and splits capturing the disposable tags on the runner’s bibs. A new race for Josh, but he was confident that ULTRA could deliver, with low profile mats and powerful tag readers, there was never any doubt.

Check out some more great photos here as well as the video footage of the Marathon

ULTRA weekend in Norway

Over the weekend of the 28-29 April 2012, RFID Race Timing’s ULTRA timing system was chalking up some impressive races in Norway. On one side of the country Josh Lisac of ToppTid was timing the Bergen City Marathon, while in Oslo Morton Toft of Ultimate Timing was taking care of the timing service at  Sentrumsløpet.

Sentrumsløpet was first run in 1981 with just over 1800 and has grown to over 9000 runners in 2012 making it Oslo’s largest running event.

The Bergen City Marathon had well over 1000 runners split over multiple distances (full marathon, half, and 3km), an event similar in setup and size to the  Holmestrand Marathon that ToppTid timed 2 weeks before.

”We experienced very, very high read rates at both races.  The ultras are easy to setup and can handle massive volumes of runners.  I am very impressed with their quality and look forward using them in the future!”  was the feedback from Josh Lisac.

For some more great photos and report of the 2012 Sentrumsløpet follow this link.