yoza

I watched a bit today, and the time from the winner to the last one home was less than a second and a half.

Now then how do they time it ?

I understand that the start is quite straight forward, bang, start the clock.

Its the end bit that worries me, I take it that the people standing at the end of the lanes press a button to stop the clock when the swimmers touch the wall.

What if the button pusher has a slower reaction time than the next, or he pre-empts the touch.

Surely the time stop would be safer if activated by the touch of the swimmer, ie a large pad on the wall of the lane end.

Remember we are talking fractions of a second here between positions 1, 2 and 3.

What do you think ?

bigsinky

i think there is a panel in the pool that the swimmer touches

SJ_Skyline

There are timing pads on the walls so when the swimmer hits them the clock is stopped.

SJ_Skyline

Now what really gets me is the 15m underwater rule - I don't understand fluid dynamics so how in the name of god can you swim faster underwater than you can no top? surely there is more resistance?

yoza

If there is a pad, what are the muppets doing at the end of each lane.

SJ_Skyline

Looking for illegal strokes - in backstroke and freestyle (crawl) you can tumble turn. In backstroke you turn onto your fron, you are allowed 1 arm forwards to make your turn before you kick off. The guys are there to make sure you don't take 2 strokes in backstroke, also to make sure you don't use illegal strokes when you are underwater i.e. kicking with your legs when you are in breast stroke or the like.

I am sure Mrs will clarify later as she used to swim competitively (Its like having your own comentator in the living room )

yoza

Another lesson learnt......

hedgehog

I don't understand the dynamics of hulls either but suspect that it is something to do with the fact that any given hull will have a maximum speed above which you have to put in huge amounts more power to get a small increase in speed. From what I recall the larger the hull the faster this actual speed is. A submarine doesn't suffer from this problem and so, I guess, this is at the root of the problem. Perhaps the air/surface thing causes turbulance or something?

I don't know but a google search on the characteristic speed of hulls or something similar might give you an answer as to why things go better underwater, or in the case of some speedboats and the like almost totally out of the water.

Tiggs

"What if the button pusher has a slower reaction time than the next, or he pre-empts the touch."

you are not serious????? my dog would have assumed something more hi-tech than a bloke and a watch!

yoza

scoob_babe

The people hanging around the end of the end of each lane are judges who will check for rule infringements (and who get overruled ) such as illegal kicks. They also have manual stopwatches that are also used in case of the panel failure, which is quite rare at this level.

Tiggs

yoza.....do you have any idea how they get those flags to pop up in the lane at the start of the race? my says its "computers" but i am thinking some sort of waterproof plastic?

imlach

PMSL.
Ditto for the athletics track now as well. I'm guessing it's some incredibly complex setup of LCD screens they've got built into the first 5m of the 100m track which can be controlled to either display pink tarmac or show flags...

Tiggs

like in Michael Jacksons Billy Jean video?

yoza

What flags ?

scoob_babe

Yoza's screen has only been displaying the pink then

yoza

Now I am confused.....