STARTING next year, local marathons and other races will be up to par with the New York City Marathon, the Tour de France and event the Olympics. At least, as far as the accuracy of the timing system is concerned.

To upgrade the quality of races in the country, veteran marathon organizer Rudy Biscocho recently acquired the state-of-the-art AMB ChipX Timing System, specially developed for timing and scoring active sports events such as running, cycling, ice skating and triathlons.

Other international events using the ChipX are the Tour de Pologne 2007 in Poland, the Hamburg Triathlon World Championships 2007, the European MTB Championships and the South African Ironman, the UCI World BMX Championships, Tour de France, the Olympics and the Hong Kong Cycling Association.

Under the AMB system, each athlete is fitted with a chip which outputs a signal. As the athlete crosses the start/finish line, the signal is detected and the exact time calculated.

According to Biscocho, the system will now be used in all his running events like the National Milo Marathon, Adidas King of the Road, Avon foot race, Yakult 10 Miler, Global City Run, ABS-CBN DZMM Takbo Para sa Kalikasan, WRR Run for Life, the Clark Free Port International Marathon slated Jan. 13, 2008 and the Condura Run in March, 2008.