New Devices Help Track Olympic Winners

Darren writes "Athletes are going faster, higher and longer and as a result the technology that measures their feats at the Olympics needs to keep up. As a result a number of new devices to help track winners, losers at the Games have been developed, including microchips on marathon runners' shoes, ultrasensitive touch pads in the pool, radar guns at the beach volleyball and cameras that take 1000 images per second."

Sabre

[ackthpt]

I was at the pub watching the men's sabre competition and we noticed they were wearing helmets the light up in different colors, also wear clothing that detects contact and prevents the usual bloodletting a strike would make. Pretty interesting stuff.

Re:Fairness

[ackthpt]

No Fair! They will be changing the outcome when they measure the outcome. A finish line is still a finish line. Though I can't recall when they were so precise they could count 100ths of a second.

Worry about how they'll apply lasers and 3D analysis to score gymnasts, regarding how closely they follow their selection and how 'artistic' it is. Anything judged seems ultimately fair game, though seems more sci-fi than prospective reality anywhere in the near future.

'Maybe if they have to wear barcoded suits...'

Where will it all go when they're done?

[jmcmunn]

I can only assume that most of the finishes will be recorded digitally, along with all of the information collected about speed and time and all of that.

So where will all of the information go when the games are over? Is there going to be a huge online stockpile where we can all go and watch the ultra slow motion finishes, and look up who had the fastest volleyball spike? I know I could spend hours just watching the slow motion cameras they use to record the divers and sprinters.

Anyone else interested? Can you imagine how much data they must be generating with all of these cameras and sensors?

False Starts

[viggen9]

Apparently the athletes are improved, too. In track events, a start time within 0.1 seconds of the gun going off is considered a false start. Apparently 0.1 seconds is the fastest reaction time that humans are capable of. Some athletes, though, are now able to react in under 0.1 seconds, and as a result, they are being charged with false starts.

I don't think they react under 0.1 seconds...

[MarcoAtWork]

it's just they're anticipating the gun, sometimes they get it right and most of the time they get it wrong: given the new rule that any false starter (after the first start) will be DQ'd I'm sure you won't see 0.1sec reaction times the second time around: to the naked eye the reaction times of the 2nd start they did the other day in the 100m semi-final seemed slower than the 1st for example.

It'd also be interesting to know how far from the athletes the gun is located and if sound travel speed can have an impact on things (how is the electronic system synchronized to the gun? via sound? some other way?)

Re:Sabre

[EvanED]

Tell that to this guy [skysports.com]...

(To be fair, it's unusual. By insurance rates, fencing is actually one of the safest sports from what I've heard.)

Eliminate the short races

[xant]

It becomes more and more ridiculous even to measure the outcomes of the short races. I watched a swim meet that was decided by 0.01s! Ultra-sensitive touch pads can detect this difference, sure. But who the hell cares? Is the athlete who was 0.01s faster in a 60s race really a better athlete? A million factors, none of them related to his athleticism or dedication or training or the degree to which he overcame personal hardship would have decided this race. Especially in swimming. Water turbulance caused by the swimmer in the next lane must have a tremendous effect; putting you next to a different swimmer could therefore change the outcome. Water temperature differences could have an effect, the wind overhead could have an effect. I see no point in giving the gold medal and all the glory to someone and denying it to another based on a 0.1s difference.

Therefore we should make all these races longer. If you double the length of the race, it stands to reason that the difference between the winner and loser will be twice as large; then maybe you can say with some confidence that the race was decided by athleticism and not pure luck. Sure it's a different sport, but at least you'd be measuring something meaningful.

Re:That's cool for track...

[zaxios]

Actually, it is interesting that as track, swimming, cycling, etc, events become even more precisely measured, gymnastics and diving remain judged by entirely fallible humans. Listening a couple of nights ago to the commentators wonder if the judges noticed one diver's poor entry makes the Games described here seem a little alien to me.

Re:This is great!

[kfg]

These new devices are developed more so to improve the TV watcher's experience; there wasn't a need for smart devices in the first Olympics, there is no need now.

You've never done scoring for a race, have you? Some of these systems are an absolute blessing even for local club events. AMB transponder systems are such old news they're affordable by individuals now and you can make your own system with Radio Shack bits for even less.

See the above comments about fencing as well.

KFG

bicycle

[Anonymous Coward]

i think the sensor is on the fork, but i could be wrong. also, it's not used to determine who won the race - it's only used as a guide.

in an extreme sprint like you've mentioned, photo finish is used. in fact, in one tour de france stage, i believe, there was a case that the sprint was so fierce that the rider whose front wheel crossed the line first (the "winner) was not the same as the rider whose sensor on the fork first crossed the line.

Re:RFID Chips

[severoon]

So...does this mean that when a runner's foot (with the RFID) crosses the finish line, that's the time that's counted? That seems wrong to me...they ought to pin it to their chest (unless the chip crossing the line isn't noted by the computers as the time).

Come to think of it, what do the Olympic rules say about this? What part of a runner's body stops the clock?

Re:Eliminate the short races

[Anonymous Coward]

First, in swimming the waves caused by the next lane can help or hurt you, but it doesn't matter in a 50 b/c everyone is neck and neck. Also, more lane lines and better gutters have removed alot of the splash and you can ride off another swimmers wake just like drafting in a bike race.

As for making the races longer, well we already have a race twice as long as the 50 free and the 100 meter dash. Different people win them because it takes a slightly different type of athlete to excel at those longer distances. So your proposing to remove the sprints. As a former distance swimmer I saw go for it, but expect 6'8" sprinters to protest quite violently because you just axed their events.

Re:Sabre

[severoon]

So, what do the rules say on that? If you accidentally kill your opponent, is that an automatic win for you, or what? (I just have to know.)

FinishLynx

[pHatidic]

The coolest tech out there is definitely finishlynx. It takes pictures of who crosses the finish line only a pixel or two wide and stitches them together so you know exactly who crossed the line in what order and what their times were since the times are exactly proportional with the pics. In this pic of me in the men's lightweight single dash [boathouserow.org] I am finishing 3rd (Alex Krupp, lane 1). The reason I appear so bloated compared to everyone else is I put on a huge fucking sprint at the finish and even though I was a full boat length of open water down on 5th place with 100 meters left I managed to finish 3rd. Not bad for not eating shit or drinking much in 2 days to make weight. Anyway because I was going so much faster than everyone else at the finish I appear in the least number of pixel wide images, thus making me appear bloated and compressed compared to all the other boats. The reason all the oars are swirly is because they change positions from when the first part of the oar crosses the line to when the whole boat is passed, thus creating a cool real time motion blur.

Re:RFID Chips

[xzoon]

Putting RFID chips on your shoes is nothing new.

Neither is touchpads and startingblocks in swimming. I've been a timekeeper for our local swimmingclub for a couple of years using this equipment, and so have my dad before me.

What makes it news is that almost noone knows about the equipment that gives them their times (or disqualifes them).

And to a poster a bit down, the equipment I use is able to measure down to 1/1000 of a second, but this is rarely used due to the incertainty. A swimmer might finish 1/1000 of a second before an other, but how do you prove that the second swimmer didn't hear the starting signal 3/1000 of a second later and deserve to win?

Re:RFID Chips

[victor_the_cleaner]

You are correct, that is why ChampionChip and other RFID timing systems are not used for high speed races such as the short-distance track events. They are mostly used in road races (5K, 10K, etc) and other events such as triathlons.

Some RFID manufacturers have developed a chip that is placed in the bib (race number) There are a few problems with this though.

1. Reads - Champion Chip and other RFID systems usually operate with a pad on the ground and the read height is a factor of outside EMI. On a good day I can get a ChampionChip to read at about waist level, so accurately reading a chest-level tag would be difficult. Of course we could crank up the power on the readers but that may not be the safest environment. There are some European systems that use an exposed antennae but they are not actually approved by the FCC or EU since they emit quite a bit of EMI into the air.

2. Cost - The chest level (bib) chips need to be an active chip to increase reads. Active chips are more expensive than passive chips (what Champion Chip uses) and have a shelf life since there is a battery in there. So as a race timer/organizer what do you do for a large race such as a marathon? If an active chip in the bib costs say $40 per unit, do you build that into the cost of the race? No. So now you must rely upon the race staff/volunteers to retrieve all the chips, so for each lost chip the race timer is out $40 bucks. Of course you know who lost/kept the chip so you can send them a letter asking for it back, or at least your $40 but the results usually aren't that good.

In walkers' shoes

[Old Wolf]

It would be good to see these in the shoes of the "50km walk" participants, to detect cheating. TV cameras repeatedly show snapshots of people with both feet in the air (the regulations of the sport are that you must have 1 in contact with the ground at all times). I predict that if this technology came through, the race times would increase by 15%

Cadence vs. wheel rpm

[ajna]

Any bike racing ending with the wheel spinning at 60rpm is a pretty slow race. Most cyclists average around 90rpm, with the sprints getting up around 130+ rpm. Much higher for track races, where it is around 170rpm.

You're confusing cadence (the rpm of the cranks) with the revolutions per minute of the wheel. The figure you cite are in the ballpark for cadence, yes, but not for the wheels' rotation. Assume a wheel is 70 cm tall ("700c"), which gives a circumference of about 2.2 m. Let's be cautious and assume a finish speed of 60 km/h (1000 m/min for ease of computation). Therefore our hypothetical wheel would be rotating at about 450 rpm.

Re:RFID Chips

[Hogwash McFly]

Secret Government Agent 1: This guy's well groomed, wears nice trousers and is sexually responsible.

Secret Government Agent 2: That's terrorist activity. Intercept, INTERCEPT!