{"id":11954,"date":"2024-07-20T15:35:47","date_gmt":"2024-07-20T15:35:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11954"},"modified":"2024-07-20T15:35:47","modified_gmt":"2024-07-20T15:35:47","slug":"omegas-ai-will-map-how-olympic-athletes-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/topat10.com\/?p=11954","title":{"rendered":"Omega\u2019s AI Will Map How Olympic Athletes Win"},"content":{"rendered":"


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On August 27, 1960, at the Olympics<\/a> in Rome, one of the most controversial gold medals was awarded. At the 100-meter freestyle men\u2019s swimming event, Australian swimmer John Devitt and American Lance Larson both recorded the same finish time of 55.2 seconds. Only Devitt walked away with the gold medal.<\/p>\n

The way swimming was timed was by using three timers per lane, all with stopwatches, from which an average was taken. In the rare occurrence there was a tie, a head judge, in this case Hans Runstr\u00f6mer from Sweden, was on hand to adjudicate. Despite Larson being technically one-tenth of a second quicker, Runstr\u00f6mer decreed the times were the same and declared for Devitt.<\/p>\n

It was this controversy that, by 1968, had led to Omega developing touch boards for the ends of swimming lanes so the athletes could stop timing themselves, removing any risk of human error.<\/p>\n

Alain Zobrist, head of Omega\u2019s Swiss Timing<\/a>\u2014the 400-employee branch of Omega that deals with anything that times, measures, or tracks near enough all sports\u2014is full of stories like this.<\/p>\n

How, for example, in 2024, the electronic starting pistol is now connected to a speaker behind each athlete because, in staggered-lane races such as the 400 meter, those athletes in the furthest lane previously heard the starting gun a fraction later than those closest to the gun, giving them a disadvantage.<\/p>\n

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