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The Honolulu Advertsier reports that after two months and US$50,000 in review expenses, the Honolulu Marathon has posted the 9 December 2007 race results.

Only 1798 Honolulu Marathon runners received accurate times on race day because SAI’s electronic timing system failed. These Advertiser articles from 12 December and 14 December describe the early efforts to identify and resolve the issues, as denial turned to grudging acknowledgment of an unprecedented failure.

A total of 22839 finishers were recorded and confirmed. Organizers used video and image files recorded by third-party vendors, spending an average of four hours to analyze each minute of video.

So when Ryan Lamppa of Running USA, says “They didn’t have to do it, but to their credit, they did,” he’s missing the point. Accurate timing is a key success factor in road races. Every road race that uses electronic timing can report the overall and group winners within a few minutes of their finish. Some participants need their results to qualify for other races, including the Boston Marathon. After running or walking for several hours, most participants want their timing results.

Early in 2007, Honolulu Marathon organizers decided to replace the ChampionChip system that was used for seven years with a paper-based RFID system. Like the Great Aloha Run, the Honolulu Marathon had been renting plastic RFID tags and recording equipment. Dozens of volunteers stoop down and clip the chips from runners shoes after the finish line, so the marathon could get its deposit back.

I’ve been involved in distance running for over 30 years. As far as I know, Hawaii is the only place in the US that uses a comprehensive chip rental system in its races. I’ve got my own ChampionChip, but I’ve never been able to use it in this state because of this rental policy. I stopped running marathons in 2001, but I run shorter, slower races during the year. I’ve obscured the serial number on the top portion of the chip.

Here is a picture of a ChampionChip, courtesy of McBadger. The chip has been opened to reveal a small RFID transmitter. There’s no battery, because the transmitter grabs power when the runner passes over a charged timing mat.

Honolulu Marathon organizers chose SAI’s paper-based RFID system for the 2007 race to save money, time and manpower. Runners could keep their SAI paper tag after the race as a souvenir. No retrieval or rental fees were needed. Additional RFID readers could be deployed on the race course to record split times. A large-scale test of the new timing system before the race would have been a good idea, though.

Ingredients for failure

The Honolulu Marathon failed to test or implement the paper-based system properly, and were unprepared for thousands of finish line questions regarding the results. Some runners found the chip time posted on the bulletin boards in the finish area did not match their own stopwatches. Soon, the bad news spread throughout Kapiolani Park.

1. Poorly trained race volunteers told runners that the RFID tags could be folded or kept on their race number. Turns out the SAI paper tags were so fragile that even one fold may break the tag, and printed instructions were provided on the race number.
2. The tags must be detached from the race number or bib, and placed on the runner’s shoe, so that the RFID sensors on the road can find the tag signal. Many runners left the tags on their number. I wonder if the instructions were printed in English only, and not in Japanese?
3. The electric generators that powered the RFID timing system on the race course flooded and failed in heavy pre-dawn rain. The RFID readers deployed on the race course were not weather-proofed, according to FinalSprint.

Coach Joe English reported last December that other races did not encounter problems with SAI’s paper RFID tags, but the Houston Marathon canceled its 2008 SAI contract when Honolulu’s problems emerged. However, I’ve seen posts on some running web forums that indicate there were SAI-related timing issues in the 2007 Las Vegas and Philadelphia marathons.

Organizers are hoping that Japanese runners, who are a large part of the annual event, will participate in the 2008 race. ChampionChips will be used, and the Honolulu marathon may sue SAI to recover costs. Perhaps all they’ll worry about in the 2008 edition are Race directors usually have other things to worry about headphone bans and baby strollers on the course. But the 2007 Honolulu Marathon will go down in road racing history as a lesson in race mismanagement.