Delhi to go hi-tech for half marathon

State-of-the-art technology will hit India for the first time ever when New Delhi hosts the World Half Marathon on October 3. A specially-de...

State-of-the-art technology will hit India for the first time ever when New Delhi hosts the World Half Marathon on October 3. A specially-designed high-tech mat will be the main attraction, with all runners passing through it. The mat’s job will be to record the data of the athlete and pass it online to the judges. They will be placed at 5-km, 10-km and 15-km marks. The best vantage points for the mats would be the India Gate roundabout, the National Stadium and the road in front of the Nehru Stadium.

This out-of-stadium technology comes courtesy the joint effort of Seiko and Winning Time, an Italy-based transponder company. The system specification has been jointly developed and meets the strictest of norms and the specific needs of the IAAF.

This technology, used at full and half marathons, walking and cross-country events, not only enhances the quality, quantity and speed of data collected on the course. Transponder data is used for on-the-run timings while official finish times are recorded by Seiko timers.

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The transponders weigh only seven grammes and in no way impedes the performance of an athlete. It is clipped to the running shoe or strapped around the ankle and the Unique Identity Number (UIN) of the transponder is logged in a database against the athlete number. Then the master timer is used to synchronise the time in each piece of WT equipment in order to help all the other systems employed for the event use the same time base.

The number of mats used depends on the course conditions, the number of athletes and the position of the measuring point (5-km would have a higher concentration of athletes than 40-km in a marathon).

As an athlete approaches the mat, the antennae will pick up the UIN and the transponder passes the data to the control box. This data is then sent via the routers and an always-open ISDN line to the WT control computer which is receiving information from each measuring point.

The UIN and time are then linked to the athlete’s number in a database and passed to the results company who then present the data to TV, scoreboards, MIS, CIS and the Internet. The most interesting aspect is that it takes only a few seconds and a TV viewer can watch the information on screen in as near to ‘real-time’ as possible.

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