BOSTON -- The organizers of today's Boston Marathon hope to prevent a repeat of 1997. Not to mention 1980. Or 1916. So, they're deploying what may be the most advanced timing and tracking system ever seen in competitive running.
The goal? Stopping cheaters.
Last year's debacle involved a California couple, John and Suzanne Murphy, who both "won" their age divisions but were later disqualified for not having run the entire 26.2-mile course that ends in Boston. And in 1980, women's "winner" Rosie Ruiz earned a place in Beantown lore when it was discovered that she had jumped out of a crowd in Kenmore Square -- less than a mile from the end of the course -- and crossed the finish line in first place, her clothes mysteriously sweat-free.
So when the starter's gun sounds in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, more than 12,000 marathoners will be wearing an unusual yellow tag on their sneakers. Dubbed the ChampionChip, the device is attached to a runner's shoelaces. Inside is a tiny transponder that interacts with radio frequency transmissions to help the Boston Athletic Association, the race's organizer, track each runner's time -- and thwart would-be Rosies and Murphys.
This isn't the first year that participants will be wearing the ChampionChip. The technology was introduced to Boston in 1996 for the 100th running, which attracted nearly 38,000 official entrants. But after last year's controversy involving the Murphys, who were subsequently banned from the race for life, the Boston Athletic Association decided that stepping up the use of the ChampionChip technology would make it harder to "win" the race without running the full distance.
"We're trying to make the whole race as cheater-unfriendly as possible," says Phil Graceffa, the association's technology coordinator. That entails an increase in the number of checkpoints that runners will pass with their ChampionChips. This year, there will be 11 places where the seven-character ID code on each runner's chip will be read, matched with their bib number in a database, and stamped with their time.
Last year, runners' chips were only tracked at three checkpoints, and the Murphys' chips managed to show up at all three. (Officials never determined whether other runners may have run using the Murphys' chips, or whether the Murphys simply crossed the starting line, the midway checkpoint, and the finish but took shortcuts in between.) It was surveillance video -- the association positions cameras at undisclosed locations along the course -- that led race organizers to conclude that the Murphys had not run the entire race.
After last year's race, the association announced that it was considering adding more chip checkpoints to protect the integrity of the results, but was wary of the cost. Digital Equipment Corp., the Boston Marathon's long-time technology sponsor, wound up footing the bill.
In addition to nabbing tricksters, this year's beefed-up system will enable the association to post runners' times to its Web site while the race is in progress. Graceffa expects that within about 30 minutes of passing a mat that reads his or her ChampionChip, the runner's time will be up on the Web.
"In the past, we've put up results on our Web site after the race was finished," says Graceffa, "but this year we really wanted to push the envelope."
That will require, in addition to Greceffa, a small army of techies: Three Digital Equipment engineers to babysit the hardware, three Microsoft employees to manage the database of times, three employees of ChampionChip, and 18 employees from Burns Computer Services of Ann Arbor, Michigan, who will oversee the whole timing system.
"This is more complex than anything ever attempted, and it's going to be pretty cool," said Mike Burns, president of Burns Computer Services. "I imagine there will just be a ton of people following friends and relatives along the course using the Web." Last year, the association's site received 900,000 hits on race day. This year, technical coordinator Graceffa expects far more.
Registered runners picked up their chips over the weekend at the association's race headquarters in Copley Square. They were asked to test the chip, and make sure that it corresponded to their bib number, by walking past a sensor.
Athletes keep the chips until reaching the recovery area near the finish line, where volunteers will be on hand to help the exhausted athletes remove them. Each chip, which costs about US$30, weighs less than an ounce.
Winning the Boston Marathon without actually running the whole course is a tradition that goes back almost to the event's inception in 1897. In 1909, Howard Pearce started the race, but dropped out after eight miles and jumped into a friend's car. About a mile from the finish, he got out and started to run again. When he was caught, he claimed he was only jogging to his clubhouse to retrieve his clothes. He was suspended anyway.
In 1916, Freddy Merchant endured the first 20 miles of the course, but he began to falter in the hilly sections. With about two miles left to run, he, too, hopped into a car and stepped out a few hundred meters from the finish line.
The decidedly low-tech system that exposed his fraud? An eagle-eyed Boy Scout who had seen Merchant riding in the car.
