Company: Bolder Boulder a 'success'

Shoe-top tech 'delivered as advertised,' IPICO says

James Baetke, Camera Staff Writer
Friday, June 1, 2007

The technology company that allowed Bolder Boulder race participants to track their times with shoe-top microchips said Thursday its service was "delivered as advertised," despite the fact that it took nearly three days for results to become available.

"We pushed the edge and tried something new and succeeded," said IPICO Sports CEO Mark Herbst, who lives in Boulder.

Race officials hired IPICO Sports to track participants' start and finish times, plus at six points along the Memorial Day 10K race course Monday. But technological snags kept participants waiting for results until Wednesday evening.

"We have done something no one else has ever done before," said Philip Lockwood, IPICO Sports president. "Somehow this dark cloud has overshadowed a great accomplishment."

Lockwood said his company discussed with Bolder Boulder staff members well before the race that an "excessive amount of data" could flood in from reader boxes tracking times from all 47,000-plus finishers.

Still, race organizers told runners and walkers that if they wore the chips, results would be ready an hour after completion.

"As a runner and a race director myself, I was upset we weren't able to get the information to racers immediately," Lockwood said. "But we got them information they have never seen before."

Using radio-frequency identification technology, the sports timing company knew that massive amounts of data would be possible, though not to the degree that was collected, Lockwood said.

Participants were left waiting for results when 20 million pieces of individual data were collected, 50 times more than race officials said they anticipated.

"On average, we saw each participant 53 times at each location," Lockwood said. "We didn't realize the magnitude of data we would acquire."

Lockwood said IPICO decided not.....READ MORE