Tour de France | The timekeepers of the Tour

The men who keep track of time at the Tour de France don't exactly work in a castle. The pit, which is set up directly at the finish line of each Tour stage, has a floor space of just nine square meters. "Five timekeepers work here. And then the four commissaires join us at the finish line. So it's going to be tight," says Pascal Rossier, head of timekeeping at the Swiss watch manufacturer Tissot.

The most important task is recording the gaps at the finish line. "We have three people who evaluate exactly that. Three because we've installed a camera on each side of the finish line. This helps us when we need to determine the order in larger groups of riders. And then we have a backup camera in case the others fail," Rossier describes the setup. The cameras deliver 10,000 images per second. " The technology has evolved," he says with a laugh. Cameras are also installed at the intermediate sprints and the mountain classifications.

Mountain stages as a special challenge

"We've also positioned timekeepers at the three-kilometer mark," adds Rossier. This is where the so-called crash zone begins on most stages. Anyone who crashes within this zone receives the same time at the finish as the non-crash riders with whom the crashed rider crossed the three-kilometer mark. In bunch sprints, the crash zone has even been extended to five kilometers this year. The additional timekeepers are naturally positioned there.

"In addition to the finish line photos, we also provide the official times for the results. That's a rather complex matter," explains Rossier. Especially on mountain stages, it takes half an hour or more for the last riders to reach the finish line. "Then it also takes time for the complete results to be finalized." The delay between crossing the finish line and the times being reported to the official results report is only five seconds, the Swiss emphasizes. He has worked for Tissot for 30 years. The company has been the official timekeeper of the Tour since 2016, marking its tenth year in this role. "But we've been active in cycling since the 1980s, at world championships and many other races," he says.

Dead zones as archenemy

However, his crew is not responsible for the time intervals between individual groups that are shown on television during the stages. This means they are not responsible for the sometimes inaccurate information. In fact, these distances are read from sensors on the support motorcycles, which are sometimes further away from the respective group. "The riders' sensors can fail. With motorcycles, you play it safe," Rossier explains this procedure. The bikes' tracking sensors are mounted under the saddle. "In principle, we can use them to determine where each rider is at any given moment. However, this also presents challenges. It's not just the sensors that can fail. The data transmission is also sometimes difficult because radio coverage is not complete," he says, describing the pitfalls of the technology.

The equipment used on each stage weighs approximately two tons. This includes the finish cameras, the sensors attached to each bike, the transmission technology, and the computers that evaluate and process the data. The team must be ready an hour and a half before the start of each stage. The time trials are always the most demanding phases. Incidentally, the time there isn't triggered by the stewards on the ramp manually counting down the time and the associated hand movements, but by the light barrier the riders pass through. "It's all about fractions of a second," says Rossier.

Better tracking for faster fall assistance

His team could take on additional tasks in the future. The death of Swiss cyclist Muriel Furrer during the 2024 World Championships tragically highlighted the tracking problem. After her serious crash, Furrer remained undetected in a forest for some time. Continuous analysis of tracking positions could help detect such accidents more quickly in the future, and help could be brought to the scene sooner. This is especially true if the crash occurs outside the range of television cameras and there are no support cars nearby. The timekeepers are already working on a solution together with the International Cycling Union (UCI).

"We're developing an application for the UCI for the World Championships in Rwanda that will process this data. The UCI will then approve and approve this technology," explains Rossier. It's quite possible that after the trial run at the World Championships, it will become mandatory for the larger races. How expensive that will be, and whether smaller race organizers can afford it, is another question. It would be tragic if there were different safety standards based on money, according to the motto: Where there's a lot of money, the professional cyclists are better protected, and where there's less money, the protection is also more meager.