News
A surprising decision by the DLV (German Athletic Federation):
Rankings determined by net times.The federal board of the DLV organisation for competitions reached an interesting decision for competitors in street races.
2004-11-21
The federal board for the organisation for competitions of the German Athletic Federation (DLV) has reached a decision that many street racers have been awaiting for quite a while: the statisticians who put together the lists of the year’s fastest times will be permitted to use the net times.Net and gross times
Through the use of the transponder/chip timekeeping device that is common at
all large street races, not only the time between the starting shot and the
crossing of the finish (gross time) but also the exact time between crossing
the starting and the finish lines (net time) can be determined. For those
runners who start in the back blocks, this often means a difference of several
minutes.
IAAF rules: the gross time is the official time
According to the international athletics rules, only the official time is valid
for the rankings. Up until this decision, the DLV also heeded this rule on the
national level, which caused a general lack of understanding from the
competitors in street races.
The statisticians also had their difficulties with this complete assumption of
the IAAF rules, as, on the one hand, they had to search the result lists for
the gross times, and on the other hand they understood the objections of the
athletes who had the undesired “extra“ time added to their achieved
times.
The quarrels will find an end in 2005
With this decision by the federal board (Bundesausschuss (BA)), the quarrels
between the runners and the statisticians will be ended starting in 2005. For
both individuals and teams, the net times will be listed in the
rankings.
Rankings for each individual race will continue to be determined by the
order in which they cross the finish The gross times will continue, however, to
be very important: the federal board clearly set that the rankings for each
individual race are to be determined by the order in which the runners cross
the finish, which means the gross times. A runner who crosses the finish ahead
of another runner will place higher in the rankings, whether or not the other
had a faster net time.
German runners in the international arena have always had the same
net and gross times anyway!
There are no discrepancies with the further valid IAAF rules to be expected
through this new decision to recognise the net times nationally. The German
runners who are placed in the international rankings of fastest times
(unfortunately very few of them) always start in the front rows of the races
and thus always have the same net and gross times.
Eberhard Vollmer
German athletic federation
Public Relations
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