International Measurement Administrator for Asia and Oceania Dave Cundy (© c)
The IAAF requires the road race courses to be re-measured by the IAAF/AIMS certified measurers every five-years. In order to satisfy the IAAF requirement, on 28 January, the Osaka Ladies Marathon course went through the process of re-measurement. This process kills two birds with one stone, for this course measurement process will also certify the marathon course for the August World Championships in Osaka.
The measurement process involves three steps process. First, selected straight line “calibration course” was measured by hand with a certified 50m steel measurement tape. This measurement process is an exact process. When the temperature on the calibrated course is measured and the influence of heat expansion on the length of the steel measurement tape is factored in, the length of the calibration course agreed with the previously marked (used 5 years ago) calibration course within a mm.
Then three certified bicycle measurers – Dave Cundy of Australia (International Measurement Administrator for Asia and Oceania), Kazunori Hiratsuka and Yoshiki Matsukawa of Japan - rode the bicycle with Jones Counter over the calibration course four-times for the purpose of pre-calibration of the bicycle and the Jones counter.
Three riders then rode over the road race course with the pre-calibrated bicycles. The course was usually measured in segments. In order to measure the World Championships Walk course, for example, the riders rode 1) loop part of the course; 2) from the start on the track to the point outside the stadium where the course joins the loop part of the course; and 3) from the point the course leaves the loop part of the course to the finish line on the track – separately.
The necessary course adjustments are quickly done, thanks to great computational ability of Kazunori Hiratsuka. After the actual course measurement, post-calibration ride is done over the calibration course again.
At the end of the day, all the staff involved in the course measurement gathered in the office for the calculation and the documentation work. Three certified riders calculated the length of the road race course based on the data from their Jones counters. The agreements among the riders are quite amazing. The highest discrepancy, although very minute, was seen for the measurement from the start on the track to the given point on the loop part of the course.
“This is because it is very hard to ride exactly 30cm from the curve on the track,” explains Cundy.
Ken Nakamura for the IAAF
