Fingal Sprint Tri - 27th May

bombidal

This is terrible stuff. How anyone could come up with the 3 mins bit i don't know. Does not reflect well on 3D. I loved the race (3rd time I did it) but that explanation via email last night was poor stuff.

peter kern

bombidal wrote: »

This is terrible stuff. How anyone could come up with the 3 mins bit i don't know. Does not reflect well on 3D. I loved the race (3rd time I did it) but that explanation via email last night was poor stuff.

Sorry for my strong language but I call bull **** on all those people that complain.
Or a very egocentric behavior at least ;-)
its not a great thing that timming is wrong S...t Happens sometimes
but it appears the timing is wrong for EVERYBODY AND CONSISTENT and I dont know a single race ( bare kilkee ) in ireland I would trust the distances given. So timing in triathlon is quite pointless ( its a great indicator but never a true relfection)
So there is no race where you have an accuracy guarantee.

On top of that 3d organizes a kids triathlon which is definitely a loss maker but a great investment for the sport . I cant talk about this year but I know that 3 years ago the race was one of the least profitable out there.
So give them a bit of credit for being one e the few kids races and i think the first tri club in Ireland that had a kids race.
The race has always been a great one and we all make mistakes sometimes.

Some people find fault with everything, and I am not saying that they are wrong but it would be good to see the bigger picture around this race.
Again sorry for my language !

bombidal

The times being wrong I accepted and waited for an explanation.. As I said I love the race but where is the logic to adding 3 mins, might as well of added 10. If people don't complain standards will drop. That's what is wrong with the country. The distances would of matched fairly well up to last years race as well.

couerdelion

peter kern wrote: »

Sorry for my strong language but I call bull **** on all those people that complain.
Or a very egocentric behavior at least ;-)
its not a great thing that timming is wrong S...t Happens sometimes
but it appears the timing is wrong for EVERYBODY AND CONSISTENT and I dont know a single race ( bare kilkee ) in ireland I would trust the distances given. So timing in triathlon is quite pointless ( its a great indicator but never a true relfection)
So there is no race where you have an accuracy guarantee.

On top of that 3d organizes a kids triathlon which is definitely a loss maker but a great investment for the sport . I cant talk about this year but I know that 3 years ago the race was one of the least profitable out there.
So give them a bit of credit for being one e the few kids races and i think the first tri club in Ireland that had a kids race.
The race has always been a great one and we all make mistakes sometimes.

Some people find fault with everything, and I am not saying that they are wrong but it would be good to see the bigger picture around this race.
Again sorry for my language !

Egocentric? In that my view is more important than anyone elses? No and to be honest that attitude doesn't come across from anyone on this board much at all. Self concerned though? perhaps.

Is ithe timing inconsistent for everyone though to the same degree? The explanation for wave 1 seems plausible but for wave 3 it definitely wasn't that far out. If it was then the TI junior development programme has issues if the best u19 female's swim times are getting slower as she matures.

It's exactly because you can't trust the distances given by a race that the only way to gauge improvement is by comparing the same race year on year. Whilst the weather or current may alter the conditions and ability to compare some parts of the event, a 750m swimming pool swim is pretty much the same each time.

Loads of people have praised 3D for the event and mistakes do happen, what is annoying is when one mistake is compounded by another and the 3min 16s addition seem arbitrary at best. The junior events looked really well organised and the kids looked like they where having a fantastic time.

The idea wasn't to turn this into a whinge but by people speaking up and identifying issues it allows race organisors (for both this event and others) to understand better what people are deeming important for a race to be classed successful. That doesn't mean it is for everyone though. You are right though, s**t happens and that's why plans are usually put in place to mitigate the affect.

RacoonQueen

Surely this is a timing company issue not 3d's fault?

peter kern

bombidal wrote: »

The times being wrong I accepted and waited for an explanation.. As I said I love the race but where is the logic to adding 3 mins, might as well of added 10. If people don't complain standards will drop. That's what is wrong with the country. The distances would of matched fairly well up to last years race as well.

I would totally agree with you, but in this case we have a race which has been praised by my clients over many years, so this was a once of mistake out of 6 years, and i have been out there twice to watch and thought this is one of the best races, and you need to bear in mind dublin is not the easiest place for a triathlon .
Overall this is a race that seems to get a bit better every year. so there is no risk of a dropping standard,( thats why I say to keep the better picture in mind as I think it was the first time something gone wrong after the inaugural event. and I think its one of those race that like kilkee , beast of the East have as high of a standard you could ask for on a European level.

I had 1o people racing last weekend all had only good things to say and they will be back next year. They felt it was a safe, well marshaled, with a very positive environment and close to where they live, race.

I have to say I have not seen the email with the explanation but again none of my clients seemed to have an issue big enough to send me the email, and it doesnt suprise me as they are all sound people.

Even in a pool race times can be hard to measure since pretty much everybody lies about their swim times before the race and lanes often dont match up and you easily can have a 1 min difference depending on if you have a good lane or a lane where you are hold up by those that made their time 1 min faster than the can swim.

I understand that people are not happy, neither would I , but its one of the races that does more than just getting the money in and for that I respect that race.

BTH

I have resisted replying on here until I spoke to the Race Director, and one or two others on the issue of timing. We are very disappointed by what happened with the swim splits. The swim starter, a former RD for this race and very experienced triathlete (basically he knows what he's doing), told the timing company that he would be starting the waves off his watch, and they would sync off that for the times. Instead the timing company synced off the NAC clock. Due to the logistics of an indoor swim and the location of the timing equipment this is the only way the start can be done, and has worked flawlessly in previous years. Obviously this error has caused a few problems and the RD has been trying to rectify this all week. You will also see a number of people have no split times which we are also working to clear up the reasons behind. The 3:16 adjustment came about from a subsequent comparison of the NAC clock to the starter clock, but clearly this is not correct either. I know the RD is meeting with the timing company today, but its now going to be impossible to precisely amend those swim times.

Our only consolation is that the exact same margin of error applies to everyone. But I accept that that isn't quite good enough. This year we were forced to use a different timing company as our usual partners for this event were completely unavailable and repeatedly apologised for not being able to do this race. As a result we were forced to decide between a company who have a history of problems, or a relatively new company who hadn't done a race of this size before but have successfully done other events such as duathlons and one wave tris. Unfortunately this didn't go as smoothly as we had hoped. But ultimately the buck stops with 3D. Its our race, one which we are very proud of, and we should have double and triple checked everything, especially with a new inexperienced timing company who we hadn't worked with before.

I completely understand everyones frustrations. I would be similarly upset.

Aside from the swim timing the feedback has been universally positive. Despite the best efforts of the Garda motorbikes and broken down cars, all other aspects of the race seemed to go very smoothly. And as always the kids race was everyones highlight. Its a pity more clubs can incorporate a kids race into their event.

Thank you all for taking part this year, and I hope a lot of you will return next year, when we'll do all we can to improve on this years event.

couerdelion

Thanks. Appreciate you taking your time to post a response.

The broken down car made me laugh. Desperately unlucky place to break down but the marshall did a good job of directing traffic round them.

I heard a guard dropped his bike at the turn around(?)

It is a well organised race an dI will be back next year. Apologies if my complaints (whinges) look like I don't respect the hard work of all involved putting the race on and the efforts of those marshalling.

BTH

couerdelion wrote: »

Thanks. Appreciate you taking your time to post a response.

The broken down car made me laugh. Desperately unlucky place to break down but the marshall did a good job of directing traffic round them.

I heard a guard dropped her bike at the turn around(?)

No problem

Oh, and FYP

redved

Just wanted to say thanks to 3d for a great race and thanks for the clarification above.

The timing issue is a small blip on what was an otherwise great race

Q7

Great race last weekend and well organised by 3d. Pity about the mixup with the swim times. I know everyone is probably adjusted the same so makes no difference in placing, but its good to compare your results to previous years which is now inaccurate. I know transition timing areas were different this year so you probably can't compare like with like. Still I don't believe the swim times were out by 3:16 - according to my watch the overall time was out nearer to 2 minutes (2:05 to be exact) - I was in wave 3.

couerdelion

I haven't looked at the finalised results but I think the email I just received is a good touch from 3D and leaves me with a good impression of their organisation (Hope they don't mind it being posted?).

3D wrote:

All,

Some of you have expressed a concern that the updated timings are also
incorrect. Based on this we went back to the timing company again and
all times have been revised, based on changed start time - these
revised times are up on the race website. This mistake is obviously a
far from ideal situation and on behalf of 3DTri I would like to
apologise. We also updated the times for four people who did extra
lengths. These updated results will go to TI as the final results as
the times from the timing company are what we have to use. Accept for
the people adjusted for extra lengths this does not impact your
placing in the race as the adjustment is against all competitors.

I would like to apologise again for the problems with timing, it is
certainly a letdown for the race and we will revisit the entire area
of timing management for next year. 3Dtri have prided ourselves on
running a great race and I hope these issues around timing did not
take away from what we hope was an enjoyable day and we really hope to
see you again next year.

Regards
Thomas
3DTri