{{refimprove, date=February 2018
Mass start is a format of starting in some racing sports such as
long-distance running
Long-distance running, or endurance running, is a form of continuous running over distances of at least . Physiologically, it is largely aerobic in nature and requires stamina as well as mental strength.
Within endurance running comes two d ...
in
sport of athletics
Athletics is a group of sporting events that involves competitive running, jumping, throwing, and walking. The most common types of athletics competitions are track and field, road running, cross country running, and racewalking.
The results ...
,
speed skating
Speed skating is a competitive form of ice skating in which the competitors race each other in travelling a certain distance on skates. Types of speed skating are long track speed skating, short track speed skating, and marathon speed skati ...
, long-distance
cross-country skiing
Cross-country skiing is a form of skiing where skiers rely on their own locomotion to move across snow-covered terrain, rather than using ski lifts or other forms of assistance. Cross-country skiing is widely practiced as a sport and recreatio ...
and
biathlon
The biathlon is a winter sport that combines cross-country skiing and rifle shooting. It is treated as a race, with contestants skiing through a cross-country trail whose distance is divided into shooting rounds. The shooting rounds are not time ...
.
There are usually many competitors in such an event, and in order for all the competitors to have the same environmental conditions, which, among other things, include
temperature
Temperature is a physical quantity that expresses quantitatively the perceptions of hotness and coldness. Temperature is measured with a thermometer.
Thermometers are calibrated in various temperature scales that historically have relied o ...
,
wind speed
In meteorology, wind speed, or wind flow speed, is a fundamental atmospheric quantity caused by air moving from high to low pressure, usually due to changes in temperature. Wind speed is now commonly measured with an anemometer.
Wind speed ...
,
rain
Rain is water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor and then fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. It provides water f ...
or shine, etc., they need to start at the same time and same place and proceed along the same
course
Course may refer to:
Directions or navigation
* Course (navigation), the path of travel
* Course (orienteering), a series of control points visited by orienteers during a competition, marked with red/white flags in the terrain, and corresponding ...
. But the large number of competitors makes it impossible to fit all of them at the same starting line. So the
athlete
An athlete (also sportsman or sportswoman) is a person who competes in one or more sports that involve physical strength, speed, or endurance.
Athletes may be professionals or amateurs. Most professional athletes have particularly well-de ...
s stand in a pack before they begin: some are behind others, sometimes by dozens of meters or more, depending on the number of competitors.
The
tradition
A tradition is a belief or behavior (folk custom) passed down within a group or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common examples include holidays or ...
is that all the athletes start at the same time, the gun time, and use the same starting line and same finishing line as those in the front of the pack. This means that those in the back of the pack have to run an extra distance. One's position in the pack at starting is determined either based on their previous records, or chosen by the participant based on their own expectation and
etiquette
Etiquette () is the set of norms of personal behaviour in polite society, usually occurring in the form of an ethical code of the expected and accepted social behaviours that accord with the conventions and norms observed and practised by a ...
. Usually, the best athletes take the front positions.
Modern
electronic technology
The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplificatio ...
has made it possible to get the time lapsed for each individual athlete from their crossing the starting line to their crossing the finishing line, the chip time. This is also called
transponder timing
Transponder timing (also called chip timing or RFID timing) is a technique for measuring performance in sport events. A transponder working on a radio-frequency identification (RFID) basis is attached to the athlete and emits a unique code t ...
. However, this has the disadvantage that the race finish is not simultaneous, so the race results do not match the finish line order. Other ways to avoid disadvantage towards those in the back of the pack are individual starts (where athletes start one at a time) and interval starts (where athletes are released in small batches). Chip time is normally not used to determine top positions. The first to reach the finish shall be the winner.