No more physical Statistics Handbook starting this edition of the European Indoor Championships. They’re replacing it with a digital service which, by the beginning of the second quarter of 2025, will charge an annual fee to users.
Philippines wins over South Korea 5-3 in men’s curling. Never thought I’d see the Philippines win a medal at the Asian Winter Games. And a gold medal too!
Philippines wins over South Korea 5-3 in men’s curling. Never thought I’d see the Philippines win a medal at the Asian Winter Games. And a gold medal too!
Philippines wins over South Korea 5-3 in men’s curling. Never thought I’d see the Philippines win a medal at the Asian Winter Games. And a gold medal too!
"This (obviously) isn't a technological question, it's a philosophical question. Anybody with the skills necessary to time a ski race to 0.01 would most certainly be capable of timing one to 0.001 or 0.0001, if the greater resolution was what the rules called for.
"Here's the reason.
"The FIS Timing Working Group has been trying to get rid of mechanical start gates since the 80's. They maintain until that happens, the random mechanical slop inherent in mechanical switches and the random flex inherent in start wands makes timing to .001 simply a random draw. And they've proved it. Repeatedly.
"The FIS TWG made their decision based on data collected by my technical group at FIS World Cup and the World Alpine Chmps in the 90's (as TAG Heuer) and then revisited based on data we collected in the 00's (as Rolex). We installed several sets of cells downhill of the start gate (on the start ramp) at 1m intervals and collected data for both men and women across all the disciplines. Analysis of the data clearly showed that mechanical start gates are, to a relevant resolution, random number generators.
"This is a question much like the one brought up at the summer Olympics in Munich in 1972. A few months before the Olympics, FINA announced they'd obtained the technology to time swimming to .001, and would start at The Games. FINA were subsequently contacted by the engineering firm who'd designed and supervised construction of the pool in Germany. Representatives from the firm sent FINA a mathematical proof showing that at speeds typical for Olympic swimmers, the pool wasn't built to sufficient tolerances to where all lanes were of equal length to a degree where .001 would be fair. And notice...to this day...swimming also still publishes results only to 0.01. FINA have shelved the idea of 0.001 for over 40 years because no mechanical engineer will certify a pool with walls and touchpad mounts so precisely built that 0.001 would be consistent and fair across all lanes.
"Think about it from an engineering standpoint.....let's say you had a time base accurate to 0.0000001 and photocells only accurate to 1.0 seconds. Sure, you could publish results to 0.000001, but anything beyond a full second would be random and therefore useless.
"Mechanical start gates are an anachronism, but the TWG has to date been unable to get rid of them. It's a tradition FIS hasn't been willing to part with. Until that happens, publishing results to resolutions beyond 0.01 simply isn't fair because it's not accurate. It's proven to be random.
"On another note, at the 1999 World Alpine Chmps at Beaver Creek, where we (TAG Heuer) were official timing, there was a tie for first in the mens SG between Kjus and Maier. Naturally we had the tapes, so for fun we calculated who won without truncation. Of course we kept that tidbit of information to ourselves. Later that night, persons unknown (still unknown to this day) broke into the timing bldg at Birds of Prey and stole the tapes. The next day, the "real winner" was published in a bunch of newspapers in Europe, along with photos of the stolen tapes."
"Yes, start gates are a technological mess. Not to mention there is no consistency, nor any flex standard, nor any thermocompensation standard, from wand to wand. So if you were to replace a wand mid-race, which most of us have done, you could be unknowingly changing your race results significantly. Certainly enough to break or make ties.
"In the 90's, TAG Heuer had some very expensive experimental carbon fiber wands manufactured for World Cup because, in theory, carbon wands would be way stronger and hopefully more consistent than the fiberglass wands we were using at the time. This particular batch of wands was built by a Formula One supplier to a very tight tolerance, so they were supposedly very consistent and came with lab test data. The carbon wands worked great until we tried them at World Cup in Lake Louise @ -37C, whereupon they shattered like icicles every 5 racers or so. Working as an arm of TAG Heuer with factory support was a lot of fun back then because the big cheeses at the time, Jean Campiche and Ted Savage, were very interested in advancing the level of engineering, so we could get budgets to design and build new widgets and try new technologies from time to time. Some of the ideas worked, some of them didn't.
"Having our tapes stolen at the WASC wasn't a catastrophe, but it was certainly amusing. They're not a secret. Any athlete or coach has the right to examine race tapes and do their own math, which is one of the successes of the TWG. It may seem like a big pain in the tush for timing geeks to fill out timing forms and submit their forms & tapes to the Chief of Timing, and I've certainly heard a ton of complaints about it. But in an era where there is extensive betting on ski racing and a lot of corruption & conflict of interest in the sports headlines, transparency is important.
"I have no better idea than you as to whether wands will ever be replaced with photocells. I'm not on the TWG and I'm an engineer, not a politician. It's a FIS decision, a phrase which makes us all cringe. As a practical engineering matter, it's a no-brainer. Keep an unplugged start gate on the start post for TV and start the race with a photocell mounted 1m down the hill. Duh." "This (obviously) isn't a technological question, it's a philosophical question. Anybody with the skills necessary to time a ski race to 0.01 would most certainly be capable of timing one to 0.001 or 0.0001, if the greater resolution was what the rules called for.
"Here's the reason.
"The FIS Timing Working Group has been trying to get rid of mechanical start gates since the 80's. They maintain until that happens, the random mechanical slop inherent in mechanical switches and the random flex inherent in start wands makes timing to .001 simply a random draw. And they've proved it. Repeatedly.
"The FIS TWG made their decision based on data collected by my technical group at FIS World Cup and the World Alpine Chmps in the 90's (as TAG Heuer) and then revisited based on data we collected in the 00's (as Rolex). We installed several sets of cells downhill of the start gate (on the start ramp) at 1m intervals and collected data for both men and women across all the disciplines. Analysis of the data clearly showed that mechanical start gates are, to a relevant resolution, random number generators.
"This is a question much like the one brought up at the summer Olympics in Munich in 1972. A few months before the Olympics, FINA announced they'd obtained the technology to time swimming to .001, and would start at The Games. FINA were subsequently contacted by the engineering firm who'd designed and supervised construction of the pool in Germany. Representatives from the firm sent FINA a mathematical proof showing that at speeds typical for Olympic swimmers, the pool wasn't built to sufficient tolerances to where all lanes were of equal length to a degree where .001 would be fair. And notice...to this day...swimming also still publishes results only to 0.01. FINA have shelved the idea of 0.001 for over 40 years because no mechanical engineer will certify a pool with walls and touchpad mounts so precisely built that 0.001 would be consistent and fair across all lanes.
"Think about it from an engineering standpoint.....let's say you had a time base accurate to 0.0000001 and photocells only accurate to 1.0 seconds. Sure, you could publish results to 0.000001, but anything beyond a full second would be random and therefore useless.
"Mechanical start gates are an anachronism, but the TWG has to date been unable to get rid of them. It's a tradition FIS hasn't been willing to part with. Until that happens, publishing results to resolutions beyond 0.01 simply isn't fair because it's not accurate. It's proven to be random.
"On another note, at the 1999 World Alpine Chmps at Beaver Creek, where we (TAG Heuer) were official timing, there was a tie for first in the mens SG between Kjus and Maier. Naturally we had the tapes, so for fun we calculated who won without truncation. Of course we kept that tidbit of information to ourselves. Later that night, persons unknown (still unknown to this day) broke into the timing bldg at Birds of Prey and stole the tapes. The next day, the "real winner" was published in a bunch of newspapers in Europe, along with photos of the stolen tapes."
"Yes, start gates are a technological mess. Not to mention there is no consistency, nor any flex standard, nor any thermocompensation standard, from wand to wand. So if you were to replace a wand mid-race, which most of us have done, you could be unknowingly changing your race results significantly. Certainly enough to break or make ties.
"In the 90's, TAG Heuer had some very expensive experimental carbon fiber wands manufactured for World Cup because, in theory, carbon wands would be way stronger and hopefully more consistent than the fiberglass wands we were using at the time. This particular batch of wands was built by a Formula One supplier to a very tight tolerance, so they were supposedly very consistent and came with lab test data. The carbon wands worked great until we tried them at World Cup in Lake Louise @ -37C, whereupon they shattered like icicles every 5 racers or so. Working as an arm of TAG Heuer with factory support was a lot of fun back then because the big cheeses at the time, Jean Campiche and Ted Savage, were very interested in advancing the level of engineering, so we could get budgets to design and build new widgets and try new technologies from time to time. Some of the ideas worked, some of them didn't.
"Having our tapes stolen at the WASC wasn't a catastrophe, but it was certainly amusing. They're not a secret. Any athlete or coach has the right to examine race tapes and do their own math, which is one of the successes of the TWG. It may seem like a big pain in the tush for timing geeks to fill out timing forms and submit their forms & tapes to the Chief of Timing, and I've certainly heard a ton of complaints about it. But in an era where there is extensive betting on ski racing and a lot of corruption & conflict of interest in the sports headlines, transparency is important.
"I have no better idea than you as to whether wands will ever be replaced with photocells. I'm not on the TWG and I'm an engineer, not a politician. It's a FIS decision, a phrase which makes us all cringe. As a practical engineering matter, it's a no-brainer. Keep an unplugged start gate on the start post for TV and start the race with a photocell mounted 1m down the hill. Duh."
"So there you have it, no point in going to higher accuracy results reporting, the mechanical start gate assembly makes it pointless."
American coaches and skaters Spencer Lane, Jinna Han, Franco Aparicio, Everly and Lydia Livingston, Sean Kay, Angela Yang, and Eddie Zhou are also believed to have died in the crash
PHI2019 got a reaction from Gianlu33 in Athletics EAA Indoor European Championships 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from Ted in Cross-Country Skiing at the Nordic Skiing FIS World Championships 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from SalamAkhi in Athletics EAA Indoor European Championships 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from Josh in Asian Winter Games 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from Fer GUA in Asian Winter Games 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from Grassmarket in Asian Winter Games 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from Olympian1010 in Asian Winter Games 2025
PHI2019 got a reaction from dullard in Commonwealth Games 2026
PHI2019 got a reaction from orangeman in Figure Skating Discussion | Qualification to Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026