Why difference in Clock Time vs Chip time for top guys at Chicago?

My only guess would be that the clock time starts when the clock first starts(obvious enough), but maybe the chip timing for each individual doesn't start until THEY pass over the starting line(i'm assuming there is major back up at the start just like any other marathon, and it may take a while for one to actually reach the official starting line.

Of course i may be way off.

However, the elite runners should have been at the front for the start and should reasonably have shown a 0-2 second differentiak at best.

A guy like Ryan Shay may not have been able to get a position right on the start line because it was his debut. People are alwys trying to push to the front at Chicago and maybe some of those guys got caught a bit to far back perhaps by arriving too late to the start.

Shay was listed as an invited athlete, as was Baker. I've run Chicago and the elites are put at the very front, then there's about 15 meters of open space before the first open corral. The huge difference in chip/gun times here doesn't make any sense.

Which time is considered official?

It's a ploy by the Democrats to show running fraud. They plan to sue so the race can be held over. If their man still can't win, they'll just yank him out at the 20 mile mark and replace him with a fresh runner, just like in the New Jersey "race."

I think there are different levels of elites, though. Shay and guys like him were probably put in what I think is termed the 'sub-elite' corral.

I am assuming that there was a technical glitch.

Baker, Shay, Cox and Dowling should have been within 3-4 seconds of the starting line at most.

The clock time is the official mark always....

jason

The 21-second difference shown for all but a few of the top runners is far larger than what would be expected for anyone who started anywhere close to the sub-2:30 cohert of runners.

That should be "cohort," not "cohert." Whatever happened to the editing feature on this message board?

Geez, do I have 'splain everything to you? If it involves a "chip" then don't count on it. "Chips" are not reliable. Presumably, all of you use these "chips" to get on the net and post here, don't you? Does your computer ever inexplicably go blue-screen on you and not work? I thought so.

I've got a wild old-school device that works every time. It's called a "watch". Use it.

So the clock time is the official time? I understand how the chip vs clock time works, and the reason I was asking the question is that I would not think Verran and company would not be put in a start position where it takes them 10 seconds to get to the the start line.

I doubt that they weren't more than 3 feet from the front. The technology failed. Culpepper's chip split was "1:03:35". Yet in his interviews he said he was in the 1:04:15 group, which he found to be a little fast.