What is The Women’s Tour?
The Women’s Tour is a cycling event that now comprises of six stages and takes place over 6 days; an extra day compared to previous editions. The Women’s Tour is an international competition that invites athletes from all over the world. This years’ competition had a huge prize awarded to the winner. This years prize fund increased from the year before in order to equal that of the men’s competition. The prize fund this year totalled £31,000.
The Women’s Tour is now a part of a top-level series of international races. The event gained UCI Women’s Tour Status in 2016. This year, 15 of the top UCI Women’s World Tour teams competed, alongside British squad Trek-Drops.
Why are radio communications so important at a large sporting event?
If a sporting or leisure event is to run smoothly, good radio communications are key. To provide a successful radio solution at a major event, you need to ensure that you are working with a two-way radio hire company that knows what they’re doing. The Women’s Tour and The Tour of Britain have chosen Communications Specialist Ltd as their radio supplier. This was due to the huge wealth of experience the company has and its ability to exceed expectations. The Women’s Tour 2019 showcased this.
Communications Specialist Ltd have been providing radio communications for the said events for over 10 years. Sporting events like this come with their challenges. The Comms Spec team defied the odds and they rose to every challenge. They receiving nothing but positive feedback on their efforts.
During the event, there was an incident with a spectator which required emergency services. Unfortunately, at this point in time, the Polices’ communications were not working. This meant they were unable to pass the message on to the emergency services. Comms Spec coordinated the help for the casualty via their communications equipment. This resulted in the causality being able to quickly receive the treatment they needed.
Two-way radio communications at a sporting event like this are clearly important. But, in projects like this, what is involved?
Radio Communications Pre-Deployment
The team started to design the network after the relevant frequencies had been obtained. The network consisted of code plugs, 2 radio tour, 1 organisation and 1 finish repeater. The Comms Spec team have many years of experience and were able to complete the radio programming very quickly. The team were well ahead with the programming and were ready in good time to start the installation. Following the radio programming, the next step was to pack the van!
Radio Communications Installation
The team split tasks between them and each crew member had their own job. One fitted the electrical connections under the bonnet; one fitted the interior cable routing and one managed the accounting of radios and brought them out with antennas and rooftop beacons. Splitting the tasks up like this enabled the team to blister through the vehicles with no problems. This was key to their success. Time was of the essence as there were an awful lot of vehicles that needed comms fitted!
Race Days!
As expected, the communications went very smoothly with no equipment failures. The team did, however, experience a short loss of radio communications. This was due to the huge length of the convoy and the lay of the land.
Much to Comms Specs delight, further compliments we received throughout the event. Most compliments the team receive were “good communications” and “great comms considering the huge break in the convoy”. Not only did the radio communications exceed their expectations, but the team also had great success with their GPS tracking. The GPS tracking performed flawlessly. A member of The Women’s Tour team was especially pleased with the GPS tracking. He said, “it’s the best GPS tracking he had ever seen”.
Comms Spec takes pride in their workmanship and took extra care in ensuring the cabling was extremely neat. One of the clients noticed how tidy the installations were and commented to that effect. In addition to the comments on the team’s neat installation, Comms Spec also received comments on their great organisational skills. As I am sure you are aware, an organised team is an efficient team. Comms Spec proved this during the installation process.
Final Thoughts on The Women’s Tour
In conclusion, the whole event was a success. The team received many personal compliments from regular Tour of Britain team personalities. They said that they were glad to have Comms Spec in charge of their radio communications. Subsequently, they were extremely pleased with the team and their performance in general.
Communications Specialist Ltd will be keeping this positive momentum going in future events. The company is very excited to be supporting the Tour of Britain event in September. The Comms Spec team would like to thank The Women’s Tour for the opportunity and look forward to supporting the event for many more years to come.