emiTag

[cbg]

Think outside the box! It's not a new idea!

[Mrs H]

Gosh I hope you washed it afterwards!

[cbg]

"Outside", not inside!

[JK]

Presumably IOF are having to tinker with their rules a bit about punching systems. They used the hands-free at World Ski-O in 2011 and although it had been used at a few events beforehand took a bit of getting used to. Most of the guys were seen slapping the control units (hanging over the track) and many of the control units got broken (and arm units).

There were complaints that they shouldn't be using new systems that weren't yet approved, but it managed to be pushed through somehow. All competitors carried 2 of the units.

As I recall at EOC the leading competitors carried those as well as GPS, I can't remember what they used to punch with.

While early hands-free systems worked very well for XC ski races they had the problem that if the range was setup too great then it was too easy to ski/cycle past other controls and fill up your SI Card with controls that weren't on your course.
Note that ski/cycle you are more like to pass controls closely since most of the time you are on tracks (except in some countries for MTB-O and in special hard-snow conditions for ski-O) rather than charging through terrain. Of course these 2 forms benefit more than running O since being able to punch without stopping saves momentum as well as time.

[mharky]

At EOC everyone had a old emit brick (no window) with back up paper card, 2 emit tags and a GPS for everyone in each final. It seemed a little over the top.