I'm an alpine guy, and I've offered to help out at the start line with a cross-country ski event. I'm used to placing two 4x4 start posts according to FIS specifications (and having a minimal gap between the end of the wand and the outer start post).
At a XC ski (skate/free)event, they insisted on only using an inner post (Left-Hand post with a Tag start gate attached). They then placed a traffic cone as an outer gate, but it was about 5 feet away from the inner start post.
The results were predictable. Some racers started with their right leg, and they didn't trigger the wand until their left leg opened the gate. (They had a bit of a head start.)
Others didn't trigger the wand at all, because they simply skied outside of the gates reach.
About 10% of the starts were screwed up this way.
Does anyone have experience with cross country ski events, (both classic and freestyle)? I think that a conventional two-post alpine setup would be best, but they said that the traffic cone idea is how it's done in Cross-Country, especially in ski-skate races. They also considered a longer wand or wand extension, but I've never seen anything like that??
Anyway, any advice from anyone with XC background & experience would be great.
(There seem to be some other rather unconventional things done in this sport and I have a greater appreciation for the FIS Alpine timing rules and timing booklet now!)
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