With over 15,000 finishers this year, the last thing that race director Wayne Riddin and his staff need at the aQuelle Midmar Mile is a timing mishap.

So the Midmar Mile uses 2 independent timing systems that run off the same frequency of the timing chips and a quadruple redundancy back-up system.

When the athletes cross the finish line, there are 4 timing mats that the athletes cross over. If their time is not caught when the athlete crosses over the first timing mat for some reason, then there are 3 additional opportunities to capture their official time.

It’s better to be safe than sorry when it comes to generating the official times at the world’s largest competitive open water swim.

Screengrab from the RC Helicam Quadcopter.

Copyright © 2013 by World Open Water Swimming Association