I got an email from Cross Country app notifying me of a price increase 
but what struck me was this image of an Australian rider (Shane Rose on Virgil) competing at Tokyo with two watches on XC. What’s the purpose of that? A backup watch? One counting down, one counting up?
Also props for using electrical tape to make a helmet design. Did the official Olympic team kit contain a few rolls with directions? 
My guess would be a backup. For some reason I feel like I have heard 2 watches for a backup, I think they may have come from the long format days though?
Old school you used two watches, one for total accumulated time and the second for each phase.
My guess would be one for total time, one for hold time if stopped on course.
Whatever the reason, props to him! I can barely get one watch to actually start correctly when I leave the box LOL.
Held time is measured from a timing marker that the combination pass, at their running speed, on the course. The riders habitually don’t know where the marker is until the Fence Judge sends them back after a hold to repass the mark. As the times are noted cumulatively during a run, a single error by an official is easily corrected.
A little off topic, but when we do marathon (driving) we use 3 watches, one counts up, one counts down and one is our hold up timer (I always use 2 - the count up and down and have had to use the hold up timer a few times), but I was always in awe with you riders who could look at your watch(es) and ride, look where you are going and jump everything and not go off course!!! I’m on the back and tell the driver (hubby) to speed up/slow down, where to go etc so I have time to do all of this. I can’t imagine doing all of this while riding.
Do eventers have a min and max time as well? Like a 3 minute window for times (say a 12km course with a min time of 24mins and max time of 27min and if you come within that window, you don’t get any penalties?) And does the course have km markings throughout it so you know if you have to speed up or slow down as you are going? As in say at the 1km marker and are at 4mins on your watch, you have a window of being there at 3:40 to 4:20, so since you are within your “window”, you don’t need to speed up or slow down? I honestly have no idea as I have never seen or been to a ridden event ever! I’m just curious on how this can be all done by one person!
Yes- there’s the optimum time. If you’re slower than that, you get time faults. There is also a max allowed time, and if you hit that you’re pulled off course.
There’s also a speed fault time- you can be faster than optimum time with no penalty, but if you’re faster than the speed fault time you get faults. This is maybe just at lower levels? So basically no faults if you come in between optimum and speed fault times, but in some cases your accuracy at hitting the optimum time is used as a tie breaker so going too fast is disincentivized.
No speed faults at the ULs.
What is WITH that?! My last several XC outings I couldn’t even get the damn thing to start.
Which is hugely annoying because I use it almost every ride, just to keep myself accountable on how long my walk breaks get!!
Yes and no.
(At all levels) On cross country, there is an Optimum Time, and a Time Limit (which is twice the optimum time).
If you are slower than the Optimum Time you get penaltes. If you are slower than the Time Limit, you are eliminated.
At the lower levels (Training and below) there is also a “speed fault time”, which is based on a specific meters per minute for the level, not a specified number of minutes. If you are faster than the speed fault time, you get speed faults.
However, there is an advantage to getting as close to the Optimum Time as possible. If there is a tie, it is broken by
a. The lowest Cross-Country score including penalties for faults at Obstacles, time penalties, and any other penalty incurred.
b. If there is still a tie, the classification is decided in favor of the Athlete whose Cross-Country time was closest to the Optimum Time.
c. …
We have watch overload. I have a count down timer (for allowed time) mounted on my carriage and a stop watch around my neck under my vest for course holds. My gator has a count up watch on her wrist and another mounted on the side/back of the carrier near one of her grips. I want us to be the people who also time our obstacles, but we aren’t there yet.
And still we make it interesting. Our first outing of the year she’s telling me we are 30 sec under target… She’s saying target, I’m hearing… Allowed. So I shorten my last planned walk break and pick up the trot. Then elves hid the 5 and 6km markers and the last 7km marker was just as we were going over the final obstacle plan, which was less than 300m front the finish.
For the non cde people, once you get in the 300m range (and you aren’t in an obstacle), you can walk, trot or canter, but you can’t halt or deviate off the direct line. We got out of the obstacle with way too much time left and I knew we would be below minimum if I just walked in. I did the most impressive dressage half steps all the way in. Pretty sure we were above minimum only by a rounding error!
Except if you are not held by an official hold fence. Hence fence judge doesn’t have time keeper in hand nor designated time mark. Ask me how I know. Always ask to SEE time piece and ask where time marker is. Haha may not exist.
I am a TD. When I give the jump judges briefing, I always tell the jump judges to make sure they have a way to time a hold. If they do not have an actual watch, or a smartphone that shows seconds, they can report over the radio: “start hold NOW” “End hold NOW” to someone who does have a watch, and has vounteered to help.
A story. We had one of the water obstacles at an FEI 3*, a technical fence which involved three elements: a jumping effort into the pond, a second effort set in the water and the final effort as a step out of the pond, the whole complex on a curving line. Not a “designated stopping fence” and never ever likely to be one. With no prior warning, over the radio we were ordered to “Stop the next horse. Right now!”. We did as required and stopped the pair while they were still in the water, between elements two and three, one of our little team vigorously waving her red flag and shouting “STOP!” while standing on the step. The opinion of the German Olympic rider was expressed strongly and spontaneously as he could not believe he had been stopped in the middle of a water complex.
Just a short distance beyond our fence, hidden from sight by the terrain, an official’s car had managed to strike into a horse running on the course where neither had expected the other to be. This had been reported over the Officials radio net, not the Fence Judge one, so we were unaware of the problem which was maybe some thirty strides beyond our fence, invisible in a hollow.
The rider circled his horse in the pond, muttering, we maintained our calm and radio comms and the TD arrived at the speed of an express train to deal with the situation.
Once it was safe to resume, the rider went back up the course to an agreed place and resumed. Nothing was lost because we Fence Judges were timing every pair past our timing marker. Lesson learned: ANY fence may need to be a stopping fence.
Edited for typo
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