GPS technology for remote track races

No. Besides this system being incredibly complicated, GPS stinks at giving an instantaneous pace and location. It works great over longer distances once the smoothing algorithm has had some time to work its magic. But for some reason those smoothing algorithms don't deal well with tracks, and consistently overestimate the distance run.

It could be done, but it would have to be a custom GPS application. Like, the out-of-the-box Garmin models will give you the raw GPS feed - they never smooth it out. But if you combined the raw GPS feed with the accelerometer data from the watch, and maybe also from a footpod, you could infer the other runner's location with insanely good accuracy. The stryd footpods work well, because while they were trying to make a power meter, they actually made a really high-quality accelerometer. That's why their pace is so bang-on. So...this is all possible, as long as someone is comfortable writing the custom software and knows what Kalman filtering is!

Which is why I agree with "Too much work" above.

But if cost were no object, you could probably do it with some other tracking system like chip readers set up around the track. But racing against a laser beam is not the same as racing a person, and by the time someone got this thing perfected we'd be back to in-person racing.

That concept could be done, but it wouldn't be done with GPS.

possible, but not accurate and not in true real time

1st issue is internet signal latency. if you're truly in different parts of the world, it would typically take 100-200ms for the packet of data to travel from one of you to another, more if you're wireless, some time for processing of that data, let's say you're probably looking at half a second of a delay. to compensate for that you can estimate the next gps position based on previous data, but you'd have to correct it if it goes too much out of sync, like if your opponent suddenly goes into kick or falls down and stops running - you will see his avatar zooming back or forth, which is kinda not fun especially during finish of shorter races

2nd issue is gps accuracy, pretty much the same problem, smoothing will make it more believable visually, but not fun when virtual runners can suddenly jump ahead a few meters at the finish line

Darby is right internet latency in the race would end you.

For positioning, you would never be able to use GPS. In a sprint, it could be like 0.4 seconds off. RFID would not be much better.. You would have to use some type of eye/laser on the track.

It could possibly be done with RTLS . This uses antenna installed around the stadium and is presently used for sporting events to track athletes. It's expensive and time consuming to set up just for one event. Combine this with the pacing lights used recently at the Impossible Games. But, there still might be a small delay in the transmission of the signals.

What Katz said is the only way this could be done well. So far no one has wanted to do this. I wanted to find a way to setup a competition with two training groups doing something like this, but there’s a lot of logistics to this.

perhaps but wrote:

It could be done, but it would have to be a custom GPS application. Like, the out-of-the-box Garmin models will give you the raw GPS feed - they never smooth it out. But if you combined the raw GPS feed with the accelerometer data from the watch, and maybe also from a footpod, you could infer the other runner's location with insanely good accuracy. The stryd footpods work well, because while they were trying to make a power meter, they actually made a really high-quality accelerometer. That's why their pace is so bang-on. So...this is all possible, as long as someone is comfortable writing the custom software and knows what Kalman filtering is!

Which is why I agree with "Too much work" above.

As long as we are talking about a bunch of custom programming and custom hardware to display the opponent's position, might as well just set up a camera or four in the bleachers and use machine vision to solve this issue rather than gps.

Strava does do "live segments" already. Not quite the same, but a similar idea to what OP is asking about. Im not sure if they implement that for running or only cycling?