Documentation of Records in Road Races
This discussion has an associated proposal. View Proposal Details here.Comments about this discussion:
Started
Comment
In order to have a complete overview of the documentation criteria, I have now created a proposal for each discipline with the discipline-specific criteria, which should supplement section 2 of the general documentation criteria.
For the road races, I have also essentially taken over the current requirements and added what has already been discussed elsewhere in this committee. From my point of view, two major points remain open:
- The course measurement is taken from the current WRG - I think in the discussions it turned out, that we need to update this method. I would be happy, if anyone of the road racing experts comes up with a proposal which I can integrate into my proposal. This proposal should also be brought up in the rulebook committee.
- The current WRG only require two stopwatches for timekeeping, whereas the IUF Rulebook requires a photo finish system for world records - we should resolve this very obvious contradiction and come up with a practicable and realistic requirement that is actually adhered to and checked. Again I would be happy, if anyone of the road racing experts comes up with a proposal which I can integrate into my proposal. It would also result in updating "3D.12 Finishes" of the IUF Rulebook.
Comment
1/ I thought about a simplified measurement method with the Jones meter. But that requires having the "official" equipment (at least the Jones meter and a large steel tape to measure at least 300m) and half a day in front of you.
In any case, to homologate a world record, it would be necessary to require a precise measurement of the course. I think that for the WRG, it is enough to cite the IAAF measurement method without going into the details of the measurement. Moreover, I think that we should remove the part that requires taking 2 measurements of the course, whereas according to the IAAF, only one measurement is enough. Two measurements are only required for sections that are covered several times.
2/ Concerning the photo finish, I think that it is interesting and it will become essential to separate competitors for the race classification. The photo finish also allows to have a judge on the finish line to check that the competitors cross the finish line in control (3B.5.8). Photofinish has already been used to rank competitors who have had chip problems. It is a requirement that has many advantages. However, I would like to point out that this is a requirement that has a cost (a 2nd professional to pay in addition to the timekeeper).
Comment
To 1/ Would you be willing to formulate a concrete suggestion on how we should change paragraph 2. of my current proposal? As I said, I am not an expert in road racing and I would prefer to leave this to someone who is more familiar with this area. We currently quote the IAAF/WA rules in paragraph 2, but at the beginning we also write something about “calibrated bicycle method” - does this correspond to what is mentioned in the IAAF/WA requirements?
To 2/ Would the use of a photo finish system really mean a second timekeeper? Couldn't the races be timed without chips using only a photo finish system? I have always understood that chip timing is an alternative to photo finish timing? But again: I am not an expert in road racing.
Comment
1/ I've made some changes to make the independent character more explicit and to clarify certain points:
The course must be measured by a qualified course measurer using the calibrated bicycle method (with Jones counter), as recognised by World Athletics. Other measuring methods may be used, but their accuracy must be at least equivalent to that of the calibrated bicycle method. The measurement procedure and the measuring equipment used must be documented and submitted to the WR validation committee. Competitors claiming a world record must not be involved in the measurement.
2/ I'm not an expert in timing technology, but I'm going to share with you what I understood from my last exchange with the CFM timekeeper, and which is confirmed by my own research.
It seems that the reference method for timing road races is the active chip system, i.e. the chips have their own power supply. These are also known as transponders. This is the method used in cycling races and triathlons, whether amateur or professional. There's also a passive chip system (without its own power supply), but if the chip is far from the finish mat, if the speed is too high or there's rain, the system doesn't work as well. I think the active chip method should be mentioned in the rulebook.
If based solely on a photofinish system, it would have several disadvantages:
- no tracking of the number of laps for mutli-lap races (unless you cross the finish line several times or place a 2nd photofinish device),
- less automation than with chips: you'd have to validate manually most of the time (if the bib isn't visible or lighting conditions are poor). The use of handlebars in unicycling road races makes it more difficult to see the bib if it's on the torso, as in cycling where bibs are on the back.
In any case, it's a device that never seems to be used on its own for road races (cycling, thriathlon or even running).
Comment
To 1/ The proposed rule sounds very good to me, I will include it in the official proposal.
To 2/ The disadvantages of the photo finish system alone are of course correct, tracking start numbers is much easier with a Chicp-based system and also the recording of times requires less manual work with a chip system - I hadn't thought about that earlier, but that is of course correct. It may still work for events with comparatively small numbers of participants, but for events with several hundred participants, a photo finish system alone will definitely not be a solution.
I think the question remains whether we want to require a photo finish system for world records in road races nevertheless. As you have already written, such a system has numerous advantages in competition. I could also imagine that some timekeepers would also set up a finish camera without any additional costs (I think at the Unicon in the USA, the timekeeper also set up the finish camera for the chip-timed races, which he had from the track races anyway).
Comment
2/ I think photofinish is going to become an important tie-breaker. At the last CFM, there was less than 0.5 sec between the top 2 finishers in the unlimited 10k and marathon. If there had been less than 0.1 sec, it wouldn't have been possible to separate the top 2 positions.
As far as cost is concerned, from the telephone exchange I had with the CFM2024 timekeeper, it's not so much the availability of the equipment as the need for a professional to monitor the device at the finish of the race for half a day. I can look into this aspect with the organizers of the last 2 CFMs (in 2023, there was photofinish and in 2024, no).
Comment
> As far as cost is concerned, from the telephone exchange I had with the CFM2024 timekeeper, it's not so much the availability of the equipment as the need for a professional to monitor the device at the finish of the race for half a day.
That's interesting, because I'm pretty sure that the timekeeper at the Unicon in the USA (e.g. at the Criterium) used a photo finish system and chip timing and also operated the system alone. Since the photo finish system is mainly there to determine the order in very close finishes, the system can practically run “on the side” and someone only has to look at the images if there is actually a very close decision that needs to be resolved.
Comment
In the criterium at UNICON, the start line and the finish line were the same. While for road races on a fixed distance, this is never the case.
Concerning the photo finish, I noticed that in the IUF rulebook, the use of the photo finish is mentioned but I did not find how to interpret the photo finish: is it the wheel that crosses the line? a part of the body? How do you do for track races?
In the last few days, I spent some time on the World Athletics rulebook. I noticed that the photo finish was not required to homologate a road race WR, a simple passive chip fixed on the shoe can be enough.
If the active chips are very precise, perhaps we could also do without photo finish provided that the active chip is positioned in a well-defined place (I am thinking of the seat tube, to be confirmed with a professional timekeeper). If the chip is fixed to the ankle, if we use 150mm cranks, there can therefore be a gap of 30cm on the line depending on the position of the foot (which would make a difference of 0.027 sec at a speed of 40km/h).
For the last 2 CFM, we used active chips, but I think that for the two last UNICON, we used passive chips. I did not hear about any problem during UNICON21, but there were some during the UNICON20 (which explains why we moved to the active chip system). With active chips you have to provide a big deposit check and not forget to return it, while passive chips are often integrated into the bib and disposable.
Comment
A few comments on the active chips from my experience.
- they are not 100% reliable. I race a circuit crit series on a bicycle and of the 150 sensors there are always 2 or 3 that fail totally or miss laps.
- In bicycle races they stipulate that the chip be fitted to the front forks as close to the bottom as possible. This is both for conformity on location, but also to make them more reliable as they are closer to the sensor mat.
Comment
> In the criterium at UNICON, the start line and the finish line were the same. While for road races on a fixed distance, this is never the case.
Of course not, but what does that change about the fact that there are obviously timekeepers who use a photo finish system and a chip system and operate them alone? The point was that it is obviously not absolutely necessary to have another person if you want to use both systems.
> Concerning the photo finish, I noticed that in the IUF rulebook, the use of the photo finish is mentioned but I did not find how to interpret the photo finish: is it the wheel that crosses the line? a part of the body? How do you do for track races?
It is described in the Rulebook:
"3B.5.8 Finishes
Finish times are determined when the front of the tire first crosses the vertical plane of the nearest edge of the fi nish line."
> In the last few days, I spent some time on the World Athletics rulebook. I noticed that the photo finish was not required to homologate a road race WR, a simple passive chip fixed on the shoe can be enough.
Yes, that's right - but with chip timing, in atlethics judges have to be used to determine the order of arrival.
I'm not saying that I think a photo finish system is necessary for the recognition of world records in road races - we can continue to accept hand-stopped times from my side. There just needs to be some minimum standard in my opinion and this needs to be reflected in the rulebook. If the rulebook requires a photo finish system for world records and the WRG only requires two hand-stopped times, then this discrepancy must be resolved.
A photo finish system would be a solution if you are concerned that the athletes in the road races are increasingly arriving in a sprint finish and the gaps are becoming extremely small. No chip system will work as well here as a photo finish, because there will always be differences somewhere in the chip system, especially due to the different mounting and therefore different positions of the chips when crossing the finish line.
As Roger has already written, the distance from the chip to the antenna is usually decisive for reliability. It therefore makes sense to attach the chips to the shoe, as is currently often done in unicycle races.
Comment
Some stopwatches display 0.01 seconds up to an hour, but whole secords after a running time of more than an hour, for lack of digits on the display. They may still be accurate to 0.01 seconds, as per the proposal. In view of the time resolution of one second for road races, would this be acceptable? Just asking. If not, a stopwatch with enough digits to always display 0.01 seconds must be used (and it must be accurate to 0.01 seconds which would be a separate requirement).
Comment
This sentence already exists to allow flexibility of using or not using chip timing +/- photo finish:
"Other measuring devices may be used, but must be at least as accurate than this requirement."
In practical terms, it's very hard to run a large event now without timing chips, which is the main cost for an event organiser. Finish line camera's are usually standard when you hire professional timing.
Agree with Roger re active chips. Anything can fail. During my 24hr record attempt, we had two active chips, two timing mats, and an integrated finish line camera.
For passive chips- most of the bike/running races I compete in use them, but they usually have a backup finish camera in place.
Comment
I think the main question is whether we want to continue to accept hand-stopped times in road races at all. If not, then we would need to adjust paragraph 3 accordingly.
If we want to continue to accept hand-stopped times, then we should adjust the corresponding rule in the IUF Rulebook so that the two rules fit together. I would find it strange if hand-stopped times were acceptable for world records, but not for competitions, that doesn't fit.
Comment
> Of course not, but what does that change about the fact that there are obviously timekeepers who use a photo finish system and a chip system and operate them alone? The point was that it is obviously not absolutely necessary to have another person if you want to use both systems.
Sorry, I wasn't explicit. I think the problem is finding a company that agrees to install a camera that costs several thousand euros and leave it for several hours without the supervision of a professional from that company. Maybe it depends on the companies and the countries. This is a question that I had raised with sporkrono (the provider of the last 2 CFMs) but perhaps I did not go into enough depth. I can get back in touch about this.
> "3B.5.8 Finishes
Finish times are determined when the front of the tire first crosses the vertical plane of the nearest edge of the fi nish line."
My bad, I had already read this rule several times, but I often go to the 3D.12 section... By the way, I think that the elements of 3B.5.8 should be included in section 3D.12. because they also concern the organizers. Sometimes redundancy is a good thing. We'll see in the rulebook committee.
Comment
> Sorry, I wasn't explicit. I think the problem is finding a company that agrees to install a camera that costs several thousand euros and leave it for several hours without the supervision of a professional from that company.
Okay, I hadn't understood it that way - I had also assumed that the official timekeeper from a timing company is always at the finish anyway and therefore the camera is of course not unattended, even if no one is explicitly actively evaluating the finish image all the time.
But wasn't the timekeeper at the CFM in the immediate vicinity of the finish? I actually only know that with chip timing the timekeeper is also located at the finish. The data from the chip timing system also needs to be evaluated?
> By the way, I think that the elements of 3B.5.8 should be included in section 3D.12. because they also concern the organizers. Sometimes redundancy is a good thing. We'll see in the rulebook committee.
Sounds very reasonable.
Comment
>But wasn't the timekeeper at the CFM in the immediate vicinity of the finish? I actually only know that with chip timing the timekeeper is also located at the finish. The data from the chip timing system also needs to be evaluated?
For the 10k, the timekeeper remained at the start. After the unlimited race ended, there was the standard race.
At the finish there was the presence of one of the race directors of the organization. I did not hear about any complaints on the 10k. I think that with the active chips, the timekeeper judged that supervision at the finish was not necessary (the same technology was used the previous CFM and as there were no problems, the organisers did not opt for the photofinish option this year). In any case, the timekeeper seemed very confident about this technology when I had her on the phone.
Comment
Okay, I understand. I've only ever known the timekeeper to be at the finish - no matter what technology was used to measure the times. Interesting to know that some timekeepers also stay at the start.
But back to the still open question: Do we want to continue to accept hand-stopped times in road races at all?
In athletics, hand-stopped times are also possible in races outside the stadium, so it would be fine for me to continue to allow them in unicycling.
Comment
I don't feel strongly about hand-stopped times for longer road races- but technology has superseded this. In reality, it's not going to be used by any race organisers.
For short races like track- it's not my area of expertise, but I would have thought that the accuracy is insufficient for a world record standard.
Comment
> For short races like track- it's not my area of expertise, but I would have thought that the accuracy is insufficient for a world record standard.
This discussion is only about road races - hand-stopped times are of course not an option in track races, and this is also taken into account in the rules.
Comment
>Do we want to continue to accept hand-stopped times in road races at all?
This question is related to the precision of the official time and the tiebreaker between competitors.
These topics have not been reviewed, but in sports in general, the tiebreaker between 2 competitors concerns the race and would therefore concern the rulebook. For road races, if the official race and record times are rounded off to the nearest second, there should be no need for precise measuring instruments and tools to be used for tie-breaking.
Comment
> This question is related to the precision of the official time and the tiebreaker between competitors.
This is only true within certain limits, because as I have already written in different places, it makes a difference whether I want to compare performances across competitions or whether I want to determine an absolute difference between two participants in the same race.
The main purpose of the published times is to compare performances from different competitions and the published accuracy must have a meaningful precision. It makes no sense to publish performances for a cross-competition comparison with an accuracy that may not be due to the athlete's performance at all, but to different general conditions - the accuracy of the time measurement itself is only one parameter.
Within a race, however, a photo finish can be used to determine absolute differences between individual riders very precisely, which can be used as a tiebreaker for the ranking of the competition. This is what the IUF Rulebook currently says and how it is used in athletics, for example.
So the question is rather: Should the current sentence “Where there is a bunch finish, the winner of the sprint is the new world record holder.” be kept or not? Because if we decide to drop this sentence and thus eliminate the need for a record Tiebreaker, then of course there is no need to demand a Foto Finisch an we can go with hand-stopped times as well.
Comment
Yes you are right, there is currently a rule that requires a tiebreaker so that only the winner of the race is designated as the world record holder.
This rule therefore requires technology such as photofinish for the tiebreaker.
We talked about this rule in the other discussion, but since they're linked, I'll mention this here too.
I don't think this is a good rule, because :
1/ In all sports there is no tiebreaker on a world record in its official unit of measurement. It is an absolute performance and if several competitors have achieved this performance, they share the record.
2/ This adds a further constraint to the homologation of a record, which will in any case be published rounded to the second. If the organizers of a local road race are unable to separate 2 competitors, it's not the problem of the IUF.
3/ World records are a showcase for competitive unicycling. From the federation's point of view, I don't see the problem in displaying that the best performance was achieved by 2 or more competitors, quite the contrary.
I am sorry to always come back to the precision of the official time of the races and the record. But the reality is that since the publication of the 2019 rulebook, to my knowledge, there is only at UNICON20 where the results were published rounded to the second. In reality very few competitors are aware that the official unit of measurement is the second.
I totally understand that for a world record, rounding to the second makes sense because road race courses are very variable. But a time rounded to 1/10th of a second would limit the risk of a shared record (if you think that's not a good thing) without the need for technology like photofinish.
Comment
> Yes you are right, there is currently a rule that requires a tiebreaker so that only the winner of the race is designated as the world record holder.
This rule therefore requires technology such as photofinish for the tiebreaker.
I wouldn't say that, I would rather say that if this technique is used to determine the winner of a race, then under the current rules it would also affect the record. If no such technique is used and there are two official winners within the race, then under the current rules both would be entitled to claim the world record. There is currently nothing in the WRG that requires a tiebreaker.
I therefore don't see your second point as a problem, even under the current rules, because in your second point, it is not possible to differentiate between the first participants and they are therefore regarded as equal winners, so they are both winners in the sense of the WRG and can claim the record. That would only change if we would require a photo finish system to determine the winners - but I don't think that's what we want.
> But the reality is that since the publication of the 2019 rulebook, to my knowledge, there is only at UNICON20 where the results were published rounded to the second.
I think the main problem is the frequently used UDA - I had already spoken to Robin a long time ago about adapting the system so that it complies with the IUF rules. I will get in touch with him again and see if it is possible to adapt the result output in the near future. Otherwise, I would of course like all organizers to take a look at the rules and follow them. I would also like the IUF to pay a little more attention to ensuring that the rules are actually adhered to.
> I totally understand that for a world record, rounding to the second makes sense because road race courses are very variable. But a time rounded to 1/10th of a second would limit the risk of a shared record (if you think that's not a good thing) without the need for technology like photofinish.
As I wrote above, I have no problem at all with shared records, it would be fine for me to drop the sentence “Where there is a bunch finish, the winner of the sprint is the new world record holder.” and thus allow split records, even if there is a tiebreaker for the race itself.
For me, the priority is that the published times allow a meaningful comparison of performances from different competitions without any noticeable influence from the triggering characteristics of a chip, its position when crossing the finish line or something similar.
Comment
For a world record: Are we looking at chip time or finish time? I am assuming it is finish time, is that right?
Jan, your thoughts are the same as mine for the bunch finish. Although, not relevant to WR, it may be useful to note that in swimming when there is a common time to the 0.01 but the judges are confident there is a winner; they add 0.001 to their time so the system shows a winner.
Comment
> For a world record: Are we looking at chip time or finish time? I am assuming it is finish time, is that right?
What do you mean by chip time vs. finish time? Do you mean brutto/gross vs. netto/net times according to the IUF Rulebook 3D.14? So times from the start signal to crossing the finish line vs. times from crossing the start line (if these times are recorded) to crossing the finish line?
Only brutto/gross times count for records, i.e. times from the start signal to crossing the finish line - analogous to the rules of athletics.
> Although, not relevant to WR, it may be useful to note that in swimming when there is a common time to the 0.01 but the judges are confident there is a winner; they add 0.001 to their time so the system shows a winner.
What rule are you referring to? I don't know of any rule that adds 0.001 seconds to a time in swimming to have a winner.
Comment
> What do you mean by chip time vs. finish time? Do you mean brutto/gross vs. netto/net times according to the IUF Rulebook 3D.14? So times from the start signal to crossing the finish line vs. times from crossing the start line (if these times are recorded) to crossing the finish line?
Thanks for the clarification. Language can be a real pain sometimes! "Chip time" = "netto" and "finish time" or "gun time" = "brutto", got it. :-)
> Only brutto/gross times count for records, i.e. times from the start signal to crossing the finish line - analogous to the rules of athletics.
How do we record the situation where we have a person could be given the WR for being the first person to cross the line (brutto), but they many not given first place in the race as someone has a faster netto time? (as set out in IUF Rulebook 3D.14).
> What rule are you referring to? I don't know of any rule that adds 0.001 seconds to a time in swimming to have a winner.
This comes from the Swim England (ASA) officials manual and would only be relevant for a fully manually timed race. When I was officiating I had never seen this rule used. There is actually a prevision in IUF Rulebook 2C.4.2 that works in the similar way "If it is in no way possible to assess an actual finish time, the rider's time will be recorded as 0.01 seconds faster than the next rider to cross the line after their remount and crossing."
Comment
> Although, not relevant to WR, it may be useful to note that in swimming when there is a common time to the 0.01 but the judges are confident there is a winner; they add 0.001 to their time so the system shows a winner.
I looked through the rules of world aquatics and I did not find any rules of this type, nor any tiebreaker rules. I read that automatic timing prevails over semi-automatic timing which prevails over the finish judges' report (9.2). A world record can only be approved if the timing is automatic or semi-automatic (12.8).
There is an example of a tie in a race, on August 12, 2016, during the women's 100m freestyle final at the Olympic games, the first 2 finished in the same time, 0.01sec apart. They were both declared Olympic champions. It was not a world record, but if it had been a WR, in my opinion, there is no doubt that it would have been shared.
In the case of a world record performance, it is specified in the World Aquatics rules that swimmers who would have the same time within 0.01 sec would be "joint holders". The next sentence concerns the administrative formality and specifies that the winner's time must be declared, i.e. the performance, not the winner's name, and there is no question of a tie-breaker to have a single winner or record-holder.
Comment
> the first 2 finished in the same time, 0.01sec apart.
Sorry, this is a mistake, they are finished at the same time with an accuracy of 1/100
Comment
> How do we record the situation where we have a person could be given the WR for being the first person to cross the line (brutto), but they many not given first place in the race as someone has a faster netto time? (as set out in IUF Rulebook 3D.14).
I agree with you that rule 3D.14 is more than suboptimal in this respect. In my opinion, only the finish time/gun time/brutto time should be used as official times and therefore also for placings - just as it is in athletics. The net times can also be made available to the athletes for information purposes, but in my opinion they should never be official times. Otherwise this will only lead to confusion.
I will bring this up in the next rulebook update.
> This comes from the Swim England (ASA) officials manual and would only be relevant for a fully manually timed race.
I couldn't find a corresponding document on the Internet, which would have interested me. But as Simon has already said, there is no such rule in the World Aquatics Rules.
Rule 2C.4.2 of the IUF Rulebook does not refer to ties or inconsistencies, but to the fact that no time was recorded for an athlete, which is a bit different.
But overall, the discussion is moving away from the actual topic, namely the documentation criteria for road races. The things that have been discussed here recently relate more to the question of whether we want to recognize equal performances from the same race as equal records, even if there would be a tiebreaker and thus different placings in the race - but there is a separate discussion on this.
To come back to the actual topic:
As I see it, there is no majority in favor of requiring a photo finish system for road races for records to be recognized. Personally, I also don't see any advantage in requiring a photo finish system because, in my opinion, even with a higher accuracy of timekeeping, the performance of the athletes themselves cannot be determined more accurately, as too many other factors play a role that make a more accurate indication of performance for a cross-competition comparison meaningless.
In addition, it has already been mentioned that it is much more practical for many organizers to realize the timekeeping exclusively via a chip system than to use an additional photo finish system.
My suggestion would therefore be to continue to accept hand-stopped times and to adopt the rules from the Time Trials:
3. The time measurement must be carried out with a resolution of at least 1/10 of a second, unless the measurement system ensures that the times are always given to at least the next longer full second. Unless the time is an exact full second, the time will be converted to the next longer full second. If the measuring system only displays full seconds and it cannot be ensured that this is the next longer full second, one second must be added to the displayed time. If the times are stopped by hand, two official timekeepers must measure the time to record the performance and both times must be submitted. If, after converting as indicated above, the two watches disagree, the longer time will be official. [...]
Comment
Are there any further comments on this, or would everyone agree to continue to allow hand speed times in principle and take over the proposed rule from above?
Are there any further comments on the documentation criteria for road races or does the proposal is fine for everyone?
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Sorry just catching up after being away. All looks good to me, happy with hand stopped times as the minimum requirement, whether it gets used or not.