A judge’s decision in a 1960 swimming final saw an Aussie win gold – and sounded the starting buzzer on the whiz-bang tech used at the Olympics today.
Add articles to your saved list and come back to them any time.Alain Zobrist insists he isn’t worried and, to be fair, the CEO of Swiss Timing does look bafflingly relaxed. Heavily stubbled, he’s wearing a long-sleeved polo, ripped jeans and an amiable grin as he sits in a conference room at his company’s headquarters in Corgémont, a small town nestled in Switzerland’s Jura Mountains.
Luckily, Omega has clocked up plenty of experience at the Olympics, having taken the mantle of official timekeeper 30 times across the summer and winter games. It was first selected for the Los Angeles Olympics in 1932 due to the fact it was the only brand at the time with a stopwatch that could measure to one-tenth of a second. A lone watchmaker was duly dispatched from Omega’s head office in Biel with a suitcase full of 30 stopwatches for the judges to operate.
“That was really the kickstart of modern timekeeping as we know it today,” says Zobrist. “Electronics are now everywhere, not only in swimming but in all different sports.” The innovation shows how the role of Olympic timekeeper extends way beyond turbo-charged stopwatches . The process we’re watching, he explains, is the next step in live-performance data. The AI capabilities of these multi-camera systems can track and analyse the exact movement of an athlete or the flight of, say, a shuttlecock or javelin. In the process, they allow a deep dive into the granular details of sporting performance.
As our tour of the facility continues, the mind-bending scale of the work becomes clear as Zobrist talks through some of the bespoke challenges of the Paralympics. Take the high-tech solution to help partially blind athletes competing in the biathlon, a Winter Olympics event that involves cross-country skiing and rifle-shooting. How does a blind athlete shoot a target they can’t even see? The answer, Zobrist says, is by using a “special laser rifle” and a headset.
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