Post Your Comments on our Examination Of The Timing/Scoring Screw-Ups At The 2012 NCAA Cross-Country Championships Here

So can you explain why when a timing system like Lynx is used for XC, why can't you report to the hundredth of a second like track? There is no difference in how the start is received or how the times are determined at the finish. I agree that any system that is 'manually' started should be reported to the tenth, but if you have the ability to be accurate to the hundredth, just like track, why is this a bad thing?

I had officiated the Ohio High School State Championships for many years. In fact, I have been involved with the state meet since FinishLynx was first used (I believe 1997). There was never any issues with the timing of the meet until Delta Timing started. There was a problem in one state meet where a race had to be rerun because of equipment problems. Delta's explanation was that all three (yes they said three) systems crashed at the same time. The prior group only used two systems and they never had a problem. Since that mess up, a new group has been doing all of the timing. I was also told they were kicked out of timing all of the track meets at Ohio State about the same time.

When the actual distance run in a cross country isn't known for sure - it could easily be more than 10 meters off, why do times need to be known to the hundredth? What would be the benefit? Times don't determine place, so they have no bearing on the results of a meet.

I had officiated the Ohio High School State Championships for many years. In fact, I have been involved with the state meet since FinishLynx was first used (I believe 1997). There was never any issues with the timing of the meet until Delta Timing started. There was a problem in one state meet where a race had to be rerun because of equipment problems. Delta's explanation was that all three (yes they said three) systems crashed at the same time. The prior group only used two systems and they never had a problem. Since that mess up, a new group has been doing all of the timing. I was also told they were kicked out of timing all of the track meets at Ohio State about the same time.

According to that logic, why bother with times at all, why not just report finish order? I just believe that if you have the capability to be accurate to the hundredth, there is no problem with that. But I do not think that it should reported to the hundredth if you are manually starting the timing system with a plunger, similar to have things are handled in track.

OnceFast wrote:

According to that logic, why bother with times at all, why not just report finish order? I just believe that if you have the capability to be accurate to the hundredth, there is no problem with that. But I do not think that it should reported to the hundredth if you are manually starting the timing system with a plunger, similar to have things are handled in track.

I did not write the reporting rule, but I know that there are a ton of variables behind it. The major one is that finishlynx is not used in these major XC events for TIMING. It is only used for place verification.

Transponder timing should only be reporting to the tenth (or full second).

Actually, Finishlynx is often used as the official timing system for many major XC meets, including recent NCAA Championships (by some companies) and Regionals. Chips are used but only to provide preliminary order and Lynx is used to finalize placing and times.

I'm sorry, but that is not true. FinishLynx has never been used to supply (all) times for an NCAA D1 XC Championship.

I never said Division 1. But I can promise you it has been done in recent years in the other two divisions.

And if Lynx had been used as the official time for D1 this year, we probably would not be having conversations about failure to produce correct results.

Rojo, when pappas and Winslow were missing from the results, Winslow's spot was filled by the girl who finished 248th. This might be why your math was off by one.

For those of you that don't understand why finishlynx is used or why it can take 30 minutes to get results out I will try to explain.

Chip systems are not accurate. Yes, they will get your time, but if 2 runners cross the mat a foot apart form each other, there is no guarantee that the mat will properly place the two runners. There is a range in which the mat can detect the chips, it's not exactly over the center of the mat.

Chip is just a secondary timing device meant for quick unofficial results and to help give us an idea of what the results are.

Finishlynx cameras (etherlynx and identilynx) are used as the primary timing devices. They can record to 1/1000 of a second or faster but there is no need to ever print the results out that far, no one really cares unless it's the 100m dash at the Olympics.

What typically happens at the end of the race is that the timer will go through the finishlynx images and check for any close finishes, then determine based on the image who was ahead of who, then swap the places in the chip timing program.

Or if the timers want to take even more time, manually go through every runnner in the finishlynx image, hopefully be able to see the bib/hip number of each runner, and type that number into finishlynx, marking each runner. This is by far the most accurate way and how track meets are timed, but it takes A LOT of time, especially when there are 100+ runners in a race. Try doing it for a race with 400+ runners and you are going to want to kill yourself.

Road races are another story since most people don't care about place and there may not be team scoring. Team scoring is typically based on total time. The timers may check the finishlynx image for the top X number of people especially if there is prize money awarded.

So basically, there is not simple/fast way to get results. Chip results are not perfect so doing it manually with finishlynx is the best way, but it takes time.

I think that the issue with this race is that they were not careful to check the finishlynx image and relied mostly on the chip times. Then for the runners who they had to adjust, there may have been some mistakes and runners may have been removed somehow.

Yes there is. Chip timing gives you fast results that are unofficial and right within relatively small bounds. The differentials in team score for first have nothing to do with whether to place runner A before runner B. It only had to do with missing people and putting people grossly out of order (e.g., the aforementioned placement of the 248th place runner into Pappas' slot.

I think a clear understanding can be accomplished about 'flash' results that are approximate and not final until there is a review of all placing choices and a review of the overall process to ensure that that are not errors. .

By the way, the 30-minute limit to make protests seems to be problematic at an NCAA XC championship for two reasons. First, the 'posting' of results does not correspond to the widespread dissemination of results. Second, releasing the results about the time of the second race does not allow the coaches and staff of a team with both genders represented to make assessments because the people are otherwise occupied. Third, the shear volume of the relevant results is huge by comparison to a track race. I think there needs to be a reconsideration of the track rule as applied to cross country championship racing.