Photo Finish picture Montgomery World Record (© Seiko)
Cutting edge technology is nowadays as central to the sport of Athletics as it is to any business. Jim Dunaway for the IAAF internet explores some of the technological advances upon, and from which our sport both relies and benefits.
If you were at an athletics meeting thirty years ago, you'd have seen a group of officials crouched at the finish line, stopwatches in hand, eyes intent on runners approaching the finishing tape. Another group was watching the runners closely to decide (or sometimes to guess) who finished first, second and third. Without those timers and judges there would have been no-one to tell us who had won, and how fast the runners had run.
Sometimes the stopwatches disagreed. If the first-place watches in a 100-metres race read 10.2, 10.3 and 10.3, the official time was recorded as 10.3. If the race were close, second place might be timed in 10.2, 10.2 and 10.3 -- in which case the second-place finisher should have been credited with a time of 10.2 -- faster than the winning time! Since this was obviously impossible, the head timer would "adjust" the second-place time to 10.3.
The finish judges, too, would sometimes disagree about who won and who was second. If the race were important as well as close, the arguments might go on for months. Even at best, two or three minutes would go by before the official result was announced.
And out on the field, the throws and jumps were measured the same way – by hand – as they still are at most meetings even today. After each throw is marked by the judges, then a measuring tape is held at the spot of the mark, laboriously stretched out and straightened, and then read by the judge at the throwing circle. That was reasonably accurate, but if you’ve ever used a tape to measure the length of a room you know that if you measure it five times, you’ll get five different answers – only slightly different, it’s true – but a single centimetre can determine the difference between a gold and silver medal.
But this is the 21st Century, and thanks to Seiko technology, things will be different, and better, from start to finish at the World Championships in Paris. Seiko and the IAAF have worked closely together to develop equipment that improves on the old ways of timing, measuring and judging -- and makes them faster, more accurate, more enjoyable to spectators, and most importantly, fairer to the competitors -- than ever was possible in the "good old days.”
Total Athletics Operating System
Seiko has woven a number of ingenious electronic devices into a Total Athletics Operating System, which connects the functions of Starting, Timing, Photo Finish, Wind Measurement, and Electronic Distance Measurement into a single coordinated array, managed by a central Seiko Timing Computer.which has been tested to an accuracy of +/- 1/10,000th of a second. Here’s how the system will work:
The Seiko Start and Auto Recall System will be used in all races of 400 metres or less in Paris. Even the starter’s pistol has been replaced by an electronic ‘gun,’ and the traditional starting pistol’s ‘bang’ has been replaced with a sharp metallic ‘ping.’ It takes a bit of getting used to at first, but it’s not only more accurate, but also more dependable – no cartridges to misfire.
Built into the starting blocks are tiny speakers to assure that each runner hears the starting gun at exactly the same instant. Pressure plates built into the blocks and coordinated with the starter's pistol measure the interval between the start signal and the change in an athlete's foot pressure against the blocks.
Since it is virtually impossible for a human being to react to a sound stimulus in less than one-tenth of a second, IAAF rules require that any sizable increase in an athlete's foot pressure in less than 0.10 second must be considered a false start.
When this happens, instead of a recall gun, a second electronic ‘ping’ automatically informs runners, officials and spectators that a false start has occurred -- and a display screen next to the starter automatically identifies the athlete who caused it.
Electronic photo-finish system
If it’s a fair start, and no recall signal sounds, Seiko's electronic photo-finish system goes to work. As the runners approach the finish line, a "slit-video" system scans an ultra-thin segment of the track precisely aligned with the finish line -- scans it 2,000 times per second, providing an unbroken image of each athlete crossing the line -- and coordinates it with the athlete's time. In a few seconds, the scoreboard will show the order of finish and each runner's time to 1/100th of a second.
If two athletes finish in a virtual dead heat, the finish image can be greatly enlarged and the finishing time read to 1/1000th of a second so the judges can separate them. And in case an athlete’s image is masked or obscured for any reason, there’s a back-up camera on the infield so the athlete can be seen from the other side if necessary. The times and places are usually displayed almost instantly on the stadium scoreboard and on TV screens around the world. If the finish is really close, it may take a second or two.
For an even quicker idea of the winning time, check the timing display on the infield near the finish line. This delivers a "flash" time as the winner of each race breaks a light beam at the finish line. It's not the official time, because the light beam might have been broken by the winner's hand rather than the torso, but it is instant, and it's almost always within 0.01 or 0.02 of the official time.
Flash Timer
To measure the wind, Seiko has an ultrasonic anemometer (electronic wind gauge) built into the system. By the time you've read the flash time and looked for the wind-gauge sign 50 meters from the finish line, the wind-reading is already being displayed in meters/second, as +1.9 (aiding wind), or -1.1 (opposing wind). The same instrument is used to measure and display wind in the long and triple jumps. The anemometer is built to withstand and measure wind velocities up to 65 meters/second (234 km/hour), and stay accurate from –35 to +70 degrees Celsius. In other words, it’s tough.
In races of 400 meters or more, the leader's split times are taken and displayed electronically for every lap, sometimes for every 200 meters -- so spectators can know instantly if the race is being run at a record pace.
Road race splits - transponder-based system
When it comes to the road races -- the marathons and the walks -- Seiko and an Italian company called Winning Time have jointly developed a transponder-based system that times and records the 5km splits of every competing athlete. It uses a lightweight, weather tight transponder chip carried in a velcro ankle bracelet.
At each 5km point on the course, the athlete passes over a mat which contains an antenna that sends out a signal to the athlete's chip and receives a the athlete's identifying code in return. This is matched to the athlete's time and recorded, and can be displayed on the stadium scoreboard less than a second after the athlete crosses the mat. Like the flash timer, these splits are not official. But they're almost always accurate within a second…and really helpful for athletes, coaches, journalists and fans in reconstructing and understanding how the race developed.
Electronic Distance Measuring system
To measure field events, Seiko developed its Electronic Distance Measuring system, a system accurate to 1/100,000 of a metre.
Once the officials mark the landing point of each jump or throw with a reflecting prism, infra-red beams are sent from the starting point (in most cases the foul line) and the landing point using an instrument similar to a surveyor's transit. The infra-red beams are reflected back to the theodolite, and the distance is calculated using the same algebra most of us learned -- and promptly forgot -- in high school. But unlike high school, the answer is not only almost instantaneous, it's also always accurate!
Field event boards make following a particular event far easier than it used to be. As each competitor jumps or throws, these rotating displays show spectators the athlete’s name, number and country, what round is being contested, and as soon as it is measured, the athlete’s result. It’s all tied in to the central Seiko Timing Computer and the Total Athletics Operating System.
