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2Timer Help

Practical guides for humans, with structure that is easy for AI systems to parse.

Groups

Groups are the award categories inside an event: age groups such as Women 40–44, overall and masters awards, or school grades. 2Timer places each finisher within their groups and builds the award lists from them. This page covers how groups work, creating them one at a time or with the Groups Wizard, and why an athlete might not land in a group.

How groups work

A group tells 2Timer:

  • the name to show, such as Women 40-44 or Men Overall, and an Abbreviation;
  • its kind, Band (a pull-out group) or Range (an age or grade group), and its Basis, Age or Grade;
  • which Gender it is for, if any;
  • which Division it is for, or Meet-wide;
  • the ages or grades it covers;
  • how many Awards it gives;
  • its Order: which group is tried first when a finisher fits two, and the order award sheets print groups in.

Each finisher is matched to groups by their gender, their age or grade, and their event’s division. Groups are worked out again whenever places are recalculated, so groups created before ages were loaded still fill in.

Range or band: will the overall winner also win her age group?

A group’s kind decides whether its winners can also win elsewhere:

  • Band, a pull-out group such as Women Overall or Masters: its award winners are taken out of the age groups, so nobody wins twice. Bands are filled first, in finish order, before any range, whatever their order in the list. With a Women Overall band of 3 awards, the three fastest women win Overall and don’t also win their age group.
  • Range, an age or grade group such as Women 40-44: keeps every matching finisher that no band took, and each of them gets a group place.

So with an Overall band set up, the overall winner doesn’t also take an age-group award. With only age-group ranges, she wins her age group.

Age or grade (Basis)

A group’s Basis is Age or Grade:

  • Age groups match the Age on the athlete record. 2Timer doesn’t work out an age from a birth date, so ages must come from your import, RunSignUp, a Hy-Tek file, or typing them on Athletes. An athlete with no age doesn’t match any age range, though they still match an overall band. That’s why a range always starts at age 1 or more.
  • Grade groups match the athlete’s grade, for scholastic meets where awards follow school grade. Grades must be K (or KG, Kinder, Kindergarten) or 1 to 12 (01 to 09 also work). Entries like 9th or FR don’t match.

Award counts

Awards means:

  • On a band: how many finishers the band takes out of the ranges. They are its award winners. If finishers tie for the band’s last award, they all stay in the band.
  • On a range: how many places its award list shows. Everyone in the range still has a group place on the results, and anyone tied for the last award is listed too.
  • 0 means none. A range with 0 has no award list. A band with 0 takes nobody, so it does nothing, and the Groups page flags it.

Finishers who match no group get the sport’s usual award list on award sheets: the top 10 in cross country and the top 3 otherwise.

Groups for one division, or the whole meet

Use Meet-wide when the same award groups apply to every race. When the meet has several divisions, a group can belong to one division, for races that start together but award differently, such as a 5K and a 1 Mile with different age groups. If a division’s group and a meet-wide group both match an athlete, the division’s group is used.

The Groups page

Open Groups in the sidebar, under Organize. It is there for every sport at every level.

From the page you can:

  • add groups with Quick Add or New Group;
  • build a standard set with Tools → Configure Groups… (the Groups Wizard);
  • edit names, abbreviations, ages, grades, and awards in the list, or open a group to change all of it: press the arrow at the end of its row, or on a phone, tap its name;
  • filter by name, division, gender, and type;
  • select groups and delete them.

Add one group

  1. Open Groups and press New Group.
  2. Type the Name. A name like Women 40-49, Men Overall, Masters, Grade 6, or 60+ fills in the gender, the kind, and the ages or grades it describes. Anything you change yourself stays as you set it.
  3. Under Kind, choose Band (a pull-out group) or Range (an age or grade group). Each choice shows an example of how it awards.
  4. Under Who’s in it, set the Division (when the meet has more than one), the Gender, and the ages or grades. Leave From age or To age empty for an open end: an empty To age means “and up”. The line under the boxes says the range in words, such as “Ages 40 and up”.
  5. Set the Number of awards. The line under it says what the number does for this kind of group.
  6. Leave Abbreviation empty to use the one shown in the box, then press Save Group.

For a quick one, press Quick Add instead and fill in Name, Abbreviation, Kind, Basis, Gender, and Awards. The ages or grades can be set in the list afterwards.

To change a group later, open it. Edit Group also has its Order and Delete group.

Group order

The Order column on Groups is the order groups are tried, numbered from 1. Every band comes before every range, because bands are always filled first. When a finisher fits two bands, the earlier one takes them; when two ranges overlap, the earlier range does. Award sheets print the groups in the same order.

  • On a wide screen, use the up and down arrows in a row’s Order cell. A group moves only among its own kind, so a range never moves above a band.
  • On a phone, or for a bigger move, open the group and choose its place under Order, such as “1 — first” or “2 — after Women Overall”.

Numbers never repeat or skip: adding, deleting, or moving a group renumbers the rest. A new group goes last among its kind. When a division has its own groups, they are tried before meet-wide groups in that division’s events, whatever their order. Saving places every event’s results again in the groups as you leave them.

Create a standard set of age groups (Groups Wizard)

The Groups Wizard builds a typical awards structure, such as overall, masters, and 5-year age groups, in one step:

  1. On Groups, choose Tools → Configure Groups…. With no groups yet, the page also offers Configure Groups.
  2. Under Scope, choose the Division (Meet-wide, or one division). Turn on Delete existing to replace groups instead of adding to them: meet-wide, that removes every group in the meet; for one division, it removes that division’s groups.
  3. Under Standard ranges, choose Ranges: None, 5-Year, 10-Year, or K-8 Grade Groups. For age ranges, set the Age span (see “Set the ages the Groups Wizard covers”), then the ranges’ Awards and Genders.
  4. Under Overall, set Awards and Genders. 0 awards means no overall group; it starts at 3.
  5. Under Masters, choose the Bands (Masters, Masters and GM, Masters, GM, and SM, or Masters, GM, SM, and VM) and set Awards and Genders. It starts at 0 awards, which means no masters groups.
  6. Check the preview of every group it will create, then press Save Changes.

Run it again for another division when races in the same meet need different age groups.

Set the ages the Groups Wizard covers (Age span)

The Groups Wizard’s Age span decides which ages the generated age groups cover, so it isn’t locked to one kind of field. Start from a preset:

  • Standard (9 & Under to 80+): the usual road race spread.
  • Senior Olympics (50 to 100+): for meets whose youngest athlete is already a master, such as 5-year groups 50-54, 55-59, 60-64 and up.
  • Custom: set First age and Last age yourself.

Every preset stays editable: change either age and the span becomes Custom. The span has open ends: with a first age of 10, the wizard adds a 9 & Under group below the ranges, and with a last age of 79, it adds an 80+ group above them. Set the span before checking the preview, because it changes every generated range.

Common award setups

  • Overall plus age groups: Overall Men and Overall Women bands, with age groups below them. The overall winners aren’t buried in their age groups.
  • Masters plus age groups: overall, masters, and 5-year or 10-year age groups, for races whose rules give masters awards separately.

An athlete isn’t landing in a group

  • No age on the athlete: age groups match only the Age field, never a birth date. Add ages on Athletes or in your import.
  • Grade written another way: grade groups match K and 1 to 12 only, not 9th or FR.
  • Wrong gender: a group with a gender only takes that gender.
  • Wrong division: the group belongs to a different division than the athlete’s event. Filter Groups by division to check.
  • Taken by a band: an overall or masters band took the athlete out of their age group. That is how bands work (see “Range or band” on this page).

Groups: checklist

  • Group names match the meet’s published awards.
  • Division groups are on the right division, and shared groups are meet-wide.
  • Age ranges have no gaps or overlaps you didn’t intend.
  • Award counts match the awards plan.
  • Athletes have ages (or grades) and genders.
  • A test report shows the groups in the right order with the right winners.

Metadata

  • Last Updated: 2026-10-21
  • Document Version: 0.5
  • Status: Active