The Wilderness ARC
Leaderboard from the Wilderness with Sportident
27.08.2005
The course was designed with Transitions which had mobile phone access (most of them) and between these the checkpoints were marked by unmanned Sportident timing boxes. These small rectangular boxes, which are about the size of your hand, were all the teams were looking for in the wilds, after hours of walking or riding. Each competitor had a Sportident ‘dibber’ attached to their wrist by an unbreakable hospital band, and they placed it in each timing box and waited for a beep and small light to flash.
That beep was important! It was the only thing which recorded they’d been to the checkpoint (and the exact time), and the use of unmanned controls also allowed the planner more freedom in selecting routes across the best and most terrain. (An option one or two of the competitors might feel isn’t necessarily an advantage!) When they arrived at each transition the information on their dibbers was downloaded to show when they’d arrived and their times at the intermediate checkpoints, which is where the new leaderboard technology came in …
In most races (those who can’t afford extensive use of satellites, which is almost all of them) times are sent back to HQ by radio (or even on sheets of paper where there is no communication) and put on a leaderboard by HQ staff. Inevitably, there is often a long time delay, and mistakes are made by tired staff, but the combination of Sportident’s digital technology and good communications allowed us to run the leaderboard in a much more effective way.
As teams arrived at transitions their dibbers were ‘read’ and the details of their times and passage for that stage of the race were sent directly to the SleepMonsters leaderboard. Where communications were best this meant a team’s arrival time at Transition was up on the leaderboard while they were still there, and race HQ was often following the race from the website! (They did have other communications too, but it was easier to watch the site.)
The result was a much more effective leaderboard, and one which we managed to adapt to show combined teams who had restarted and what they had achieved. We’ll certainly be using the system again, and working with Sportident to develop it further.
Judging by the response it was a success, as during the race a page on the Wilderness ARC was read on SleepMonsters every 3 seconds. We also received over 1000 messages to the teams, which were printed off and placed in their kit boxes at transitions. They were much appreciated.
For more information on Sportident click on their logo on the leaderboard.
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