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Door County Triathlon’s 1st Place Confusion

Padra Meyer of Des Plaines, IL was the first female to cross the finish line in Saturday’s Door County Triathlon sprint distance event. She even broke the tape, but she didn’t win the race.

When you’re organizing a race in which 1,000 competitors are starting with a swim leg, it’s impossible to start them all at once, so Race Director Sean Ryan starts the athletes in waves. Most athletes are organized by age group, but top-level competitors are asked to identify themselves to start in the “elite wave,” the first ones to enter the water. Since times are kept with a timing chip that gets activated when the athlete passes through the starting gate and stopped when they cross the finish line, participants in later waves still get accurate times. That way, race officials are assured that the first person crossing the finish line is the winner. Unless, of course, an elite athlete doesn’t start with the elite wave.
Find out why Meyer didn’t win in the Peninsula Pulse’s Daily Dose of Door blog.

August 3rd, 2010 | Category: Running News

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