What happened to VirtuRace.com?
A couple of months ago I stumbled across an interesting web site that somehow had listed several of my recent (and not so recent) race results. You can easily create a free profile and claim races as “yours” from a generated list. If you don’t recognize a race, you can inform VirtuRace of any mismatches and they’ll delete it from your profile. It’s an interesting idea to see all your recent performances in one place, and you can submit race results that are missing from their database using a simple online form. I even submitted a csv file listing several results from 2006 which was uploaded and on the site within a few days. There’s also a feature that lists your “rivals” - runners you’ve races head-to-head against at least 3 times - and compares finish times.
One day last week I went online to check if my latest 5k had been added, but was greeted with a “VirtuRace.com is becoming Athlinks. We will return 10.23.06″ message. The message is still there today, so I guess they’re having problems with their new site. I’ll be interested to find out what new features have been added (if any), and if indeed the original functionality is still in place. For now, I’ll just have to wait and see….
UPDATE: [10/24/06]
The Athlinks web site is back - well almost. They say they’ve been hard at work moving the new features in place and are currently allowing members to move back in. I’m still waiting on my invite to join the new site, and hope it arrives before 29th October when the new site opens to the general public.
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October 25th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
Hello!
Thanks for blogging about the site! We’re still moving a few things around before we send out anymore invites. We have about 100 people in the site right now just finding annoying little bugs here and there.
I will add you to the next group to go in. What is your full name or virturace username?
Troy Busot
October 25th, 2006 at 7:39 pm
Hey Troy,
Thanks for the comment.
Full name: Steve Speirs
Uername: stevespeirs
Looking forward to checking out the new site,
Steve