Following the first trial of the
RaceRanger drafting detection technology at the Tauranga Half in January, the
system will now be tested by the elite fields at the Challenge Wanaka event
this Saturday. World Triathlon’s Sport Department are following the New Zealand
trial events closely, in collaboration with the Triathlon New Zealand Technical
Officials present at the trial events.
Following the trials, the RaceRanger
system will be evaluated for future competition use as an athlete and
officiating tool for the sport.
Co-Founder and CEO of RaceRanger,
James Elvery, commented; “We are really looking forward to getting back out on
another race-course after the first test in Tauranga 3 weeks ago. This is a
special place and a special race, for both myself and my Co-Founder Dylan
McNeice. I’ve been coming here for family holidays my whole life, and am lucky
to now call Wanaka home, and for Dylan this race in particular, which he won
three times in his racing career, has always been special.”
“Since Tauranga we’ve worked hard on
ironing out a few bugs that were reported by a couple of athletes, and are now
pleased with the improved state of the system. It’s like starting out in
triathlon as an athlete; every time you race, you learn something new.”
“This race will be run at the
extended Challenge Family 20m draft distance for the elite athletes, which is
twice the distance we had in Tauranga. We are looking forward to showcasing the
RaceRanger system’s performance at these distances.”
“A huge thanks again go out from our
team to the athletes for their willingness to trial the technology in their
competitions, as well as World Triathlon, Challenge Wanaka and Triathlon New
Zealand for their support.”
““We have been working closely with
the RaceRanger team to develop this technology and make it a really useful tool
for our Technical Officials, and it is great to see it implemented at events.
We have taken the feedback from officials and athletes in the first pilot, and
the RaceRanger team have developed some small changes to make it even better,
so we are confident that we will be able to use the system in various
non-drafting events in the near future”, explained World Triathlon Sports
Director, Gergely Markus.
RaceRanger is an electronic sensor
system designed to improve fairness around the issue of drafting on the bike
section of non-drafting triathlons. Currently, determination of drafting
distances by athletes and the technical officials policing them are made with
subjective naked eye judgements.
Developed by two triathletes from New
Zealand, in collaboration with the World Triathlon Sport department, RaceRanger
comprises two electronic units that triathletes in non-drafting competitions
attach to their bicycles, one at the front and one at the rear.
The system makes accurate measurements
of the distance between athletes while they ride. The rear unit features three
coloured lights that signal backwards to a following competitor, providing
information about their following distance. In future, the system will detect
when infringements are occurring and send this data to technical officials
patrolling the course, via a tablet app interface. The official will assess the
situation in real-time and can then make a decision on whether a penalty needs
to be applied through the system.
ABOUT WORLD TRIATHLON
World Triathlon is the international
governing body for the Olympic and Paralympic sport of triathlon and all
related multisport disciplines around the world, including duathlon, aquathlon,
cross triathlon and winter triathlon. Triathlon made its Olympic debut in
Sydney 2000, with a third medal event, the Mixed Team Relay, added to the
programme at Tokyo 2020, while para triathlon was first added to the Paralympic
programme at Rio 2016. World Triathlon is proudly committed to the development
of the sport worldwide, with inclusion, equality, sustainability and
transparency at our core as we seek to help triathletes at all levels of the
sport to be extraordinary.
www.triathlon.org
No comments:
Post a Comment