Olympic Swimming Technology

Factual Questions
1

How do they know who wins a swim race?

I mean, they can tell, down to the thousandths of a second, who came in first! Obviously, there are not 8 judges trying to figure out which racer comes in first… There must be a sensor on the wall, right?

Anyone know how it works?

2

There is a sensor on the wall.

3

To elaborate, there is a pressure-sensitive pad mounted on the finish wall. The timer is started by a sensor attached to the starter’s gun and terminates when the swimmer touches the wall.

4

The sensor in the wall at the end of the pool can measure to the thousandth of a second, but by the rules, races are timed only to the hundredth. And because of that, there was a tie in one of the races at the Atlanta games.

5

I don’t think any timed sport in the Olympics has hand timing or naked eye judging to see who finished first. Even the 10,000 meters is timed to the hundreth of a second.

I imagine that the marathon is too, but it isn’t reported that way since it rarely has a finish that close.

About the only Olympic sport that I know of that records its times to the thousandth is luge.

6

As a former HS swimmer, I can testify that touch pads are not just used in the olympics, but in nearly all levels of competitive swimming. Every meet I ever swam in the YMCA, through high school used touch pads on the walls. My home pool (where the Ohio HS state championships were held every year) was nice because our display would show all 8 lanes’ times at the splits. Most small pools only have a 1 lane display, so they show the leader’s split. It’s very nice to swim, look up at the clock immediately following the race, and see the 1 next to your name. :slight_smile:

Jman

7

And bobsled. And in the 1998 Olympics, there was a tie in bobsled for the gold medal, anyway. Italy and Canada shared the gold.

8

There was a tie in this olympics.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport/hi/english/olympics2000/swimming/newsid_936000/936708.stm

9

Just wanted to second what Jman said – I was a varsity swimmer throughout high school and we used touchpads as well. It would have been a nightmare without them!