The Zone4 Team at the Canmore World Cup, Feb 9 2024.

It is Tuesday, less than 3 days before the first World Cup race in Canmore. The Zone4 phone rings… 

..it’s Swiss Timing on the the other side. 

Swiss Timing are experts in timing World Cups and Olympic Games for XC Skiing and many other sports; they’re in town for timing the World Cup this weekend. 

But they have a major issue. 

The Frankfurt airport is on strike and their timing equipment for the weekend is trapped. There are 2 choices, cancel the Friday race, or get help from the local timing company in town, Zone4 Timing.

In less than 3 days, it’s a big task to ask our small team, but we accept the challenge right away. For most of us, timing a World Cup is a dream, it is the highest level of competition in the sport. The biggest challenge isn’t timing the race, but it is to connect our system to the TV graphic program so that millions of viewers across the World can watch the race and not notice any difference in the presentation. Basically, the goal is that when a racers cross a remote timing point or the finish line, their times need to display on the screen with their names and rankings attached to them instantly.

Our main programmer was the person that had to get the most work done. For 2 days, he worked around the clock to make sure we were ready to offer the best. The day before the race, most of our small team came up at the Nordic Center in Canmore to help with testing. The Swiss Timing team was working with us so they could take our times and incorporate it to their graphic system.

It was a wonderful story of collaboration between two great companies! I often text with the Swiss Timing team who manages the World Cup Circuit. They are all very friendly, passionate and fun to work with.

We timed the Friday race flawlessly and the organizing committee, FIS and Swiss timing were all so thankful that a local timing company could help out in a worst case scenario. They’ve even expressed, “There is no where else in the World that a local company can just jump in with less than 3 days notice to accomplish this massive task.”

We are truly grateful for the opportunity, and thrilled that we could execute.

I encourage you to watch the footage of the race here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KjYsyBX9_o&t=1541s

It was also very cool to have our story told in different media. Here are 2 nice articles:

RM Outlook: https://www.rmoutlook.com/local-sports/canmore-company-called-up-to-world-cup-to-save-the-day-8305587

Radio Canada : https://ici.radio-canada.ca/nouvelle/2049432/canmore-zone4-coupe-monde-ski

We hope to keep building from this event and relentlessly improve our product and service – so that all our users can benefit from our passion and expertise.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and take care.

The Zone4 Team