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How to time a flying 30 without buying timing gates

The test is the standard one. The timing is where most squads either spend $400 or give up and use a stopwatch.

The flying 30 is the cleanest measure of maximum velocity a coach can run on a Tuesday. Give the athlete a run-up, time them over a fixed distance while they are already at full speed, and you have a number that is about top speed and almost nothing else.

The test itself

Mark three points. A start, an acceleration zone of about 30 metres, and then the measured 30 metres after it. The athlete runs through the whole thing; the clock only cares about the second half. You need roughly 80 metres of clear, flat surface once you have allowed for slowing down safely at the end.

• Warm up properly and take at least two build-up runs at eighty to ninety per cent before anything is recorded. A cold maximum velocity test is how hamstrings end seasons.
• Run it early in the session, before fatigue, or you are measuring tiredness.
• Take the best of two or three, and write down which one it was.
• Record the conditions. Wind especially, since a flying 30 is short enough that a following breeze flatters it noticeably.

Why the stopwatch fails here specifically

A hand time carries about two to three tenths of error, split between reacting to the athlete entering the zone and reacting to them leaving it. A flying 30 for a decent high school sprinter takes somewhere around three seconds. The error is therefore close to ten per cent of the measurement, and the seasonal improvement you are trying to detect is a few hundredths.

Worse, the error is not random noise you can average away. A timer who knows the athlete is supposed to be quicker this month starts the watch a fraction later and stops it a fraction earlier. Nobody does this deliberately. Everybody does it.

What the alternatives cost

Automatic gates are the correct answer and the market knows it. The cheapest consumer system is around $150 for a single pair, serious ones start around $400 and go up steeply, and wearable alternatives sit somewhere in between. For a well-funded programme that is a sensible purchase. For most school and club squads it competes directly with things like entry fees and a bus.

Doing it with two phones

StatLap's speed gates are the same idea without the hardware. One phone at the entry to the measured zone, one at the exit, the distance between them typed in, and the athlete runs through. Breaking the first gate starts the clock, breaking the second stops it, and both phones show the segment time along with speed in metres per second and miles per hour. Nobody presses a button, so the reaction error that ruins hand timing is not in the number at all. It costs nothing, and it stays free.

Practical notes that matter more than they should. Set each phone square to the track rather than at an angle, because a gate is a line the camera watches and an angled line is triggered by an arm before a torso. Keep both phones still: a tripod, a bag, a fence, anything. And run one athlete at a time through the gates; a second runner crossing the line is a second trigger.

The limits, plainly: two gates means one measured segment per run, so this cannot give you a five-split breakdown of one sprint. It reads a camera rather than a laser, so poor light or a badly placed line will cost you. And it is app timing, not certified FAT: the right tool for tracking training, not for anything that has to stand up as an official mark.

Which is the honest comparison to make. The question is not whether two phones match a $3,000 system. It is whether they beat the stopwatch that is otherwise going to be used, and on a test this short, they beat it comfortably.

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