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Run Geelong A Big Success

Over 11,000 runners took part in the Run Geelong on Sunday the 18 November. Despite the early morning rain, conditions cleared by the race was ready to start. All entry fees went towards the Cotton On Foundation which raised over half a million dollars for their charity which is primarily focused on kids health and in particular the redevelopment of the kids ward in Geelong. This is the 2nd year that Ultra was used to time the event with disposable tags and the contract timer Tomato Timing ensured a high level of service at the lowest possible price to ensure the maximum amount of money could go to a good cause. Because Ultra is a system that can read any Gen 2 UHF tag, the timer was able to access the lowest priced quality tags from Smartrac and save large sums of money for the event.

Start of the 12km event at Run Geelong

Anaconda Adventure Race and RFID

While Australia’s largest triathlon was being timed on one side of Australia, the largest adventure race in the Southern hemisphere was also taking place in Augusta, Western Australia. A staggering 3000+ competed over the weekend. The Anaconda Adventure Race National Series run by Rapid Ascent are all timed by RFID Race Timing Systems technology. In the case of Augusta it was the ever reliable HDD System that has proven itself in over 10,000 events across the globe in a career spanning 6 years. For the upcoming Lorne (Victoria) Anaconda Race it will be Ultra and the UltraTag being used.

Braden Currie (NZ) takes out Anaconda Augusta

The Augusta event was timed by blueChip Timing Pty Ltd and both the Saturday Mini-Anaconda and Sunday main race used the Racetec Mobile Tracker that allowed spectators to view splits and results instantly using their smartphones. This technology has been in use now for over 12 months and greatly enhances the feedback to commentators and spectators on how the leaders are performing as well as their loved ones. Best of all it is incorporated into the complete Racetec package at no extra charge. RFID Race Timing Systems dovetails perfectly into highly developed 3rd party software packages that continue to evolve with novel means of reporting entrant data on the internet.

Timing the Largest Triathlon in Australia

The iconic Noosa Triathlon held in Queensland, Australia boasted a field size of over 5500 competitors on Sunday making it the biggest triathlon in Australia and the 3rd largest in the world. The Olympic Distance race had over 55 wave starts to fit the enormous crowd on the swim course and the HDD Systems used by Multisport Australia did not miss a beat as over 50,000 timing splits were logged throughout the day.The winners of the elite category were Ashleigh Gentle and Peter Kerr in the women’s and men’s race making it an all Australian affair.

Ashleigh Gentle wins Noosa

Australia's Largest Cycle Event

Yesterday RFID Race Timing Systems was used for the first time to track over 11,000 riders in the iconic Round the Bay in Victoria. Distances ranged from 25km right up to the massive 250km trek that saw a complete circumnavigation of Port Phillip Bay starting and finishing in Melbourne. The Ultra equipped timing points tracked the riders live throughout the 14hr event and made allowances for the 15km ferry crossing across the turbulent waters between Queenscliffe and Sorrento. The event was timed by Event Timing based in Melbourne for Bicycle Victoria.

Start of the 210km round-trip to/from Melbourne

Aaron Clarke of Event Timing was very happy with the performance of Ultra, particularly the ease of use of side antennas on roads that were not closed to road traffic. The novel 30 minute ferry crossing can now be treated as a non-timed section because timing points are situated at either side of the crossing. Each riders progress was tracked live via My Race Result giving Bicycle Victoria staff an instant snapshot of how the competitors were progressing for the very first time in the events 20 year history. The Ultra system is now used in almost all the mass participation cycle events in Oceania with the Santos Tour Down Under also contracting RFID Race Timing Systems for the next 3 years. And the largest cycle event in New Zealand, the Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge will be using Ultra for the first time next month. All these iconic cycle events have switched to Ultra from others timing systems for one simple fact –  there is no other high performance system on the market today that comes close to Ultra for reliability and ease of use.

Oslo Marathon

The famous Oslo Marathon in Norway was timed by Ultimate Timing Service using Ultra and disposable transponders placed on the back of the race bibs. Close to 17,500 runners participated in one of five different distances with the winner of the blue ribbon event, the marathon being Øystein Sylta in the mens event in 2:25:42 and Marthe Katrine Myhre in the women’s.

Most of the larger events in Scandinavia are now moving from the old low frequency technology to the latest UHF disposable transponder system Ultra due to the excellent reliability and ease of use with low cost tags. Ultimate Timing Service expects 90% of their running and cycle events to move to Ultra in 2013.

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.