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Found a series of short news article about GPS measurements being shorter than the advertised course length.
'Too short' Newport half marathon route to be re-measured - 3/6/15 BBC News - http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wal...-east-wales-31765031
Claims Newport half marathon route was too short - 3/2/15 - BBC News - http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wal...-east-wales-31691347
Was Newport Half Marathon course too short? Officials investigate after complaints - 3/2/15 - Wales Online - http://www.walesonline.co.uk/n...course-short-8751246
UPDATE: Newport Half Marathon chiefs 'double-check' course distance, but are 'confident' race was correct - 3/2/15 - Gwent News - http://www.southwalesargus.co....was_correct/?ref=rss
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Kevin,

This was the St Davids Day Half Marathon in Newport. 1 March 2015. A lot of GPS tracks were around 12.8 miles. Now, we all know that GPS tracks if anything tend to read slightly long, so a consistent pattern of distances short by 2% is certainly highly suspicious. The first thing done was a check of gps against the course map, and this did not reveal any significant short cuts of the advertised route. Usually when we get claims of a short course it is course layout by the organisers which we find to be at fault. But this was not the case here. The measurement secretary for Wales did a check measurement last Wednesday, and I received his report on his investigation early this morning. He found the course to be 636 metres short (~3%). I suspect that contributing in a major way to the original under measurement was a mistake in the adjustment process (adding in stead of subtracting a distance).

We certify over 400 new courses each year and there has only been one other that I can recall in recent times being found short due to a measurer's mistake. In most cases of suspected short courses investigations show the proper course was not followed.

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