Mass start
Encyclopedia
Athletics (track and field)
Athletics is an exclusive collection of sporting events that involve competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and race walking...
, such as a marathon
Marathon
The marathon is a long-distance running event with an official distance of 42.195 kilometres , that is usually run as a road race...
race, speedskating or a long-distance cross country skiing competition.
There are usually a large number of competitors in such an event, and in order for all the competitors to have the same environmental conditions, which, among other things, include temperature
Temperature
Temperature is a physical property of matter that quantitatively expresses the common notions of hot and cold. Objects of low temperature are cold, while various degrees of higher temperatures are referred to as warm or hot...
, wind speed
Wind speed
Wind speed, or wind velocity, is a fundamental atmospheric rate.Wind speed affects weather forecasting, aircraft and maritime operations, construction projects, growth and metabolism rate of many plant species, and countless other implications....
, rain
Rain
Rain is liquid precipitation, as opposed to non-liquid kinds of precipitation such as snow, hail and sleet. Rain requires the presence of a thick layer of the atmosphere to have temperatures above the melting point of water near and above the Earth's surface...
or shine, etc., they need to start at the same time and same place and proceed along the same course
Course (navigation)
In navigation, a vehicle's course is the angle that the intended path of the vehicle makes with a fixed reference object . Typically course is measured in degrees from 0° clockwise to 360° in compass convention . Course is customarily expressed in three digits, using preliminary zeros if needed,...
. But the large number of competitors makes it impossible to fit all of them at the same starting line. So the athletes stand in a pack before they begin: some are behind others, sometimes by dozens of meters or more, depending on the number of competitors.
The tradition
Tradition
A tradition is a ritual, belief or object passed down within a society, still maintained in the present, with origins in the past. Common examples include holidays or impractical but socially meaningful clothes , but the idea has also been applied to social norms such as greetings...
is that all the athletes start at the same time, the gun time, and use the same starting line and same finishing line as those in the front of the pack. This means that those in the back of the pack have to run an extra distance. One's position in the pack at starting is determined either based on his previous records, or chosen by him based on his own expectation and etiquette
Etiquette
Etiquette is a code of behavior that delineates expectations for social behavior according to contemporary conventional norms within a society, social class, or group...
. Usually, the best athletes take the front positions.
Modern electronic technology has made it possible to get the time lapsed for each individual athlete from his crossing the starting line to his crossing the finishing line, the chip time. Other ways to avoid disadvantage towards those in the back of the pack are individual starts (where athletes start one at a time) and interval starts (where athletes are released in small batches). Chip time is normally not used to determine top positions. The first to reach the finish shall be the winner.
In cross country skiing, on elite level, the tradition is individual start. Each athlethe starts at his/her own predetermined time. Mass starts are used more often after 1990, partly because of TV influence. It creates better summaries for TV stations which do not want to show the entire race, and viewers who do not want to see all.