Brief overview of Olympic timing technology

Brief overview of Olympic timing technology. In 1932, they had "twenty five people eyeball the finish line and average their stopwatch results to find the winner" of track events.

Reader comments

ramananAug 23, 2004 at 6:27PM

Photo finish is enhanced to take 1,000 pictures per second. That is insane. I wonder what sort of camera they use to do that.

dowingbaAug 23, 2004 at 6:33PM

A video camera?

ramananAug 23, 2004 at 6:53PM

Yes, that much I guessed. Capturing 1000 frames a second seemed ridiculous. Apparently it isn't. Here is a film camera used to film things like airbags decompressing.

Steven MarshallAug 23, 2004 at 8:20PM

At what point does the micro differences between times of athletes become boring for spectators?
Honestly, knowing that some guy is 1/250th of a second faster than some other guy does not thrill me.

justinAug 23, 2004 at 10:01PM

i'm sure it doesn't thrill them either steven. "well, i'll just beat you tomorrow. i need to shave my nose hairs. they create that 1/250th second drag that got me the silver." lol!

BergeAug 23, 2004 at 10:28PM

Anyone noticed the scrolling Swatch logo on the finish lines?

This thread is closed to new comments. Thanks to everyone who responded.