Work/Start-List Generator
Heat sorting for athletics meets
A tool that turns the Excel entry list into start lists for a whole meet in 3 minutes.
- Role
- Build + Iteration
- Duration
- 3 weeks initial, ongoing
- Stack
- Python, openpyxl, Windows .bat
- Year
- 2026
Where it started
At athletics meets every event begins with a sorted start list, put together by the outside contractor who runs IT at the meets: athletes grouped by age category per the rulebook, distributed across heats and lanes, separated by club so teammates don't run side-by-side. Producing those lists used to mean about three days in Excel: pulling each athlete into the right band by birth year, balancing heats so the last one isn't half empty, double-checking every row because one slipped category invalidates the heat. The work was technically simple and mind-numbingly tedious, and it had to be redone from scratch for every meet.
What we did
- 01
01Reads the entry list as it arrives
Before a meet, the IT lead gets the entry list in Excel: name, club, birth year, event, personal best. The tool reads it directly, with its empty rows, notes in the wrong columns and club names that drift between abbreviation and full name. Nobody copies anything into a new template.
- 02
02The rulebook written as code
Every age-category boundary and heat size is one row in a table. When the rulebook changed mid-season and one category disappeared, updating the tool was one change to that table, and every heat recalculated itself.
- 03
03Balanced heats
The fastest run in the last heat, the slowest in the first, and empty lanes always fall in the slowest. For 47 athletes on 8 lanes the heats come out 7, 8, 8, 8, 8.
- 04
04Clubs split across lanes
Teammates don't run side by side: the tool swaps lanes within a heat when that happens. When splitting is impossible, because one club fills more than half the field, the output says so instead of quietly getting it wrong.
- 05
05Output ready for the next program
The start lists don't end on paper. They go straight into the camera and timing program, so the output has to be exactly in the format that program loads, with no fixing by hand.
- 06
06Runs with a double-click
The tool is a folder with one .bat file. A double-click reads the entry list and writes the start lists to the same folder. No install, no terminal, no internet.
Let's talk for ten minutes.
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