06 August 2007

Levene Half Marathon timed by world-leading Technology

The organisers of this year's Levene Half Marathon, held in Taupo yesterday, employed ground breaking timing technology to provide a level of accuracy and responsiveness in recording times unseen at the event before. This year organisers turned to Times-7 Sport, a Wellington based specialist in sports timing to provide the sophisticated timing solution.

Around 3000 competitors from around the country had their times automatically recorded using RFID-powered timing tags attached to each competitor's shoes. These RFID tags were used in conjunction with Times-7's Sportscore event management software to record each competitors start time, half-way split time and finish time.

Levene Half Marathon race director, Wayne Reardon, says "The shoe tag was definitely more comfortable for participants than the ankle bracelet used in previous events - we've had no negative feedback at all from competitors about wearing the tag. From our point of view we're really happy with how the system performed and the support from Times-7 Sport's staff on the day.

Times-7 Sport is the New Zealand and Australia distributor for IPICO Sports including the IPICO IP-X^TM platform and Sportag^TM active sports timing system. The tags incorporate an RFID timing chip and attach to the runner's shoe instead of requiring an ankle bracelet.

The IPICO Sports solution used for the Levene Half Marathon was also recently used for the BolderBOULDER in Colorado, USA, the fifth largest running event in the world with over 47,000 runners participating in this year's event.

"The IPICO Sports system provided a 100% read rate and set new standards for data capture with times for competitors recorded at each mile split of the BolderBoulder" says Times-7 Sport CEO Antony Dixon.

"Our team has extensive experience in manual timing of sports events," says Dixon, "We've utilised that experience in developing and using Times-7's Sportscore software at events around the country, and now we've taken that to the next level. The IPICO-based RFID technology we use offers a 100% read rate, guaranteeing accurate times for each and every competitor. This enables us to deliver a truly world class, innovative sports timing solution to event organisers across a range of sports."

"We've also integrated the Sportscore software with Wellington-based company Datatorque's Zeus-Events system. This has allowed the Levene Half Marathon organisers to offer online registration and web-based race results as well as the sophisticated timing that Sportscore offers" says Dixon.

Results from the Levene Half Marathon event have been posted to Zeus-Events at www.zeus-events.com/taupohalfmarathon

About Times-7 Sport Times-7 Sport provides sports timing solutions using the most advanced sports information technologies available in the world. Times-7 Sport is the Australasian distributor of both IPICO Sports and Times-7's sports timing products, including Sportscore, a state of- the-art event management software solution. Our systems make event timing easy, providing accurate and reliable results every time.

Contact:
Antony Dixon - CEO
antony.dixon@times-7.com
+64 27 444 0304

About Times-7 Sport
Times-7 Sport provides sports timing solutions using the most advanced sports information technologies available in the world. Times-7 Sport is the Australian distributor of IPICO Sports and Times-7 sports timing products, including Sportscore, a state of- the-art event management software solution. Our systems make event timing easy, providing accurate and reliable results every time.