My Argentinian diary

Buenos Aires Marathon 2021

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My Name is Ulisse, I am Technical Support and Sales Manager at RACE RESULT. I have never been to America before, even though I always wanted to see with my own eyes what I was used to seeing in the movies and from some travel books. Finally, I had the lucky chance to visit Buenos Aires, not just as a tourist but as a support timer for one of the greatest marathons in South America.

Buenos dias, Argentina

Even entering Argentina was a small adventure. We got stuck at the airport and had to wait for hours before we were finally allowed to enter the country. At least we spent the time to go through the event files created by our customer and to remotely check the decoders for the event on RACE RESULT 12. Finally, we were able to get into a cab in the direction of Buenos Aires City, where we met the customers at their storage location.

Empanadas as race day preparation

It's always exciting to see a brand new shiny decoder ready to be used, and seeing 10 of these fully charged is even better! 10 decoders, ground antennas of 4 and 8 meters, extra rolls of transponders and some of the new Track Box Passive: all the toys necessary to make a timer smiling.

I thought I would have been more stressed for the race, but since I supervised the creation of the event file and all the graphics made for the outputs and the certificates, I felt very relaxed, and I was able to enjoy without any hesitation my first (of a lot) empanadas :) I love timing, but I love food as well. There's no better way to feel a country than through all the local street food.  

The day before the race we met with the organizer of the Buenos Aires Marathon, Assocìacion Nandú, and Diego from TYR Argentina (a great timer who helped us before and during the race) for a final recap, a quick check at the expo to see how the bibs were handled, and to double-check the Internet connection in the timing tent: everything went smoothly, almost too smoothly to be true.

Race day

It's 4 am. We are at the timing tent setting up the main decoder with its 8m ground antenna under the 8m arch: it's crazy to believe, but it was so precise that even a Swiss guy would have been proud.

After setting up the backup system, time flies and it is already time to start. There are 11k participants. With 14 wave starts they look to be even more: a continuous flow of runners is crossing the mats and the decoders are doing their job breaking the exciting atmosphere with their beeper going crazy. I have a look at my screen and I see the timing module going faster and faster, collecting all the reads at such speed that it's impossible even to read one of them.

I feel excited about being part of this race and relaxed at the same time. I can trust our equipment and software: Nothing can go wrong, and even if something were to happen, we would know what to do and how to restore the incessant flow of passings.

Finish line emotions

The 6 hour time limit of the race were the fastest 6 hours in my last 2 years: Yes, with Corona I couldn't travel that much, and this is actually my first marathon with more than 10k participants from a long time, where I'm supervising the whole process from A to Z. It's nice to be back. It's nice to see all the people happy and tired from their run. It's overwhelming to see someone crying at the finish line and hugging their partner, celebrating their feat!

After a few clicks, we stopped the live page and published the official results with all the splits listed and the participants' certificate: in a matter of seconds everything was updated, and we were ready to leave the finish area.

How to celebrate this success of RACE RESULT being the supplier of one of the biggest South American Marathons and Association Nandú our timing partner, who made all of this happen? Of course with a juicy steak of Bife de Chorizo, but this is another story for another time...

© race result AG