Saturday, August 16, 2008

Beijing Olympics Marathon Route

Beijing Olympics Marathon Route (dead link removed)
screen shot of marathon route
I am currently watching (well it is on television in the background) the women's marathon at the Beijing Olympics. A couple of minutes after the start of the marathon I thought it would be interesting to follow the route on Google Maps.

I then thought it would be even better if I could follow the route in the new Google Earth browser plug-in. In theory it should be easy.

So I added a few lines of code to the map and then tested it in a browser. Unfortunately, as a couple of people have commented on this site in the last couple of weeks, there is a discrepancy between the Google Map tiles and the Google satellite imagery for Beijing. Because the kml was built on Google Maps when you run the kml in the Google Earth browser the route is slightly out of kilter. Therefore I had to create my own My Map and redraw the route.

It is now an hour into the marathon and the map is finished. I can now follow the route in the Google Earth browser.

The athletes have an hour head start on me but I think I can catch them up before they reach the finish line. Ready ... Go!

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