Relay races

Definition

A relay race is a team race in which only one team member is racing at a time, and there is no break between relays.

A good example is an Ekiden race, which is usually run over the marathon distance. The first runner of the team runs the 5 km distance, the second runner, upon arrival, sets off for a distance of 10 km, the third for 5 km, the 4th for 10 km, the 5th for 5 km and the 6th and last runner for 7.195 km.

The team time is determined quite easily by the arrival time of the last relay runner. The timing constraint is to determine the race times of each of the relay runners and to present a ranking of each relay as if it were an independent race.

The special case of a race in laps and relays is not affected by this mode of operation.

Settings

Setting up a relay event is done from the event creation wizard, by choosing for example an Ekiden (running race) or a Generic Relay Race (other) as the race type.

The second step of the wizard asks you to enter the list of legs, with their respective distances and - optionally - a suffix number that identifies which bib will run on which leg. The legs entered here will become races in the event created by the wizard.

This is also where you can specify whether the timing will be managed with one chip per competitor or a single chip for the entire team.

Registrations

The entry of participants must imperatively meet two conditions:

• All competitors on the same team must have a strictly identical team name

• Each competitor in a team must be assigned to the leg/race he/she will complete

Additional properties applicable at the team level are available by clicking the button that appears when the mouse hovers over a cell in the team column. For example, this includes the team category, which will be used for ranking.

The main Teams tab also allows you to view and edit this information as a list, for all teams.

Results

Given the amount of data to be processed, relay management requires the use of an RFID timing system to acquire the passage times and their associated bibs. However, it is possible to enter times and bib numbers manually, as well as to make changes and additions.

Acquisitions of passings

With an electronic timing system, it will be necessary to configure an acquisition that feeds the finish line in the case where each relay takes place at the same location, or as many acquisitions as there are locations if the relays take place at different sites.

When a torchbearer arrives, the departure time of the next torchbearer is automatically updated.

The departure time of the first torchbearers is automatically entered: with the time 00:00:00 or with the start time of the race if one is available.

One chip per individual or per team

In case you go with a single chip for a whole team, the bib number identified by the chip will have to refer to the team number, whether directly or through a bib-chip correspondence table.

This team number (or team bib) can be imported or entered later in the Teams list or in the Teams property form:

Ranking

For a Relay competition, the result grid displays the teams by default in the order of the provisional ranking throughout the event (NB: this is a team grouping at the grid level which can be deleted like all groupings. This grouping will be automatically recreated each time the results grid is displayed).

The team's time appears in the group header. It is automatically calculated from the time of the last torchbearer to cross the finish line.

Mixed/Men/Women teams: the gender of a team is automatically deduced from the gender of each of the relay runners.

Monitoring

To maintain a consistent ranking, it is essential that the order of the leg runners be strictly observed. A number of incidents can occur during the race itself: two runners switching chips, a leg runner crossing the finish line unexpectedly, etc.

When the leg runners' order of passage is not respected, the software signals this by displaying the team header in red. However, the team's time calculation generally remains correct because it is only defined by the passage of the last torchbearer.

Team information

The participant search tool (on top of the main window, shortcut Control+f) also allows you to search for a team. Summary information about a team is displayed directly in the search panel: team ranking, ranking of each torchbearer, etc.

Rankings for each leg

The ranking of each leg can be obtained by selecting the corresponding race in the list displayed above the results grid, then removing the default grouping on the team column.