From AP: "... Phelps' time of 50.58 seconds was confirmed after a review down to the 10-thousandth of a second; Cavic's time was 50.59.
Chianese explained that it requires 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of pressure to activate the touchpad.
"Any less and waves would set it off," Chianese said. "You can't just put your fingertips on the pad, you really have to push it. We explained all this directly after the race to (Cavic) and his coach."
The photos were taken by Omega cameras placed directly above the finish line, slightly angled to include two lanes in each photo. [Link]
The photos to the right on top do not really confirm or show me anything. The DVR and the Sports Illustrated photos were better. I am looking for a higher rez copy.
12 comments:
And yet, to my mind, the photographs are inconclusive. I suspect the judges relied, in large part, on the technology at their fingertips (no pun intended): photo evidence, the time recorded at the touchpad, and the mechanics of the touchpad.
If coasting to the wall did not produce the two kilograms of necessary force (or mass or pressure or whatever the proper unit) then Omega might have not recorded the touch at the wall, but rather the race to produce 2 kilos of pressure at the wall. That is not the proper standard for evaluating the victory.
Also, as was noted on an earlier post, the posted times could easily have involved rounding at the thousandth's of a second level? Has anyone reviewed the hard data that was recorded and matched it against the computer's treatment of that data? Or tested the equipment's measuring tolerance to determine if what has been treated as fact, a one-hundredth of a second split between the gold and silver, was nothing more than a record of measurement tolerance?
I fear, not so much that the judges didn't do what (I think) they are supposed to do, which is judge. But that they didn't judge at all and took as fact something that is not so clearly fact, but rather is mere evidence of victory. I have my doubts that Phelps was the clear winner. Not that he necessarily lost, maybe there should have been two golds awarded.
Or maybe there is an Olympic judge's handbook that directs them to err in favor of the recordings. Which really would make Omega the arbiter here. That would be an odd result.
First off, you are pretty smart guy. You have articulated what lots of of people; including myself, have missed.
Second, Phelps is sponsored by Omega - which is to say that the appearance; maybe not the reality, but the appearance that a conflict of interest might exist for some. Omega should not sponsor athletes in events that they are timing.
Third. If you touched the wall first you won. If pressure is the de facto measurement of a win or a lose, then that has to change. Perhaps lasers if water doesn't bend them or extreme photographic capture?
To me, it looks like the photos show Cavic touching first, but Phelps obviously used more pressure. Two golds may have been the proper thing to do here, considering the "mere evidence" the judges made their calls on, but...
What I don't get is why people think this is such a huge conspiracy and why there's so much controversy around it. I see the conflict of interest in Omega's sponsorship, but this technology has been around for almost two decades or more, and both swimmers have swum plenty of races to understand how the touchpads work. Furthermore, I haven't heard either of them publicly contest the results (aside from Cavic's coach); if it's not *official swimming rules*, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a competitive swimmer or coach who didn't know that you have to come at that touchpad with a considerable amount of velocity to activate it.
Cavic may have out-"touched" Phelps by 1/10,000th of a second (or a smaller interval not recognized by worldwide swimming standards), but he had a slower finish. Phelps beat him to it, albeit barely, period.
Now, all that opinion-ificating done, I think Cavic would CLEARLY win it if they were to swim it again.
I accept that Phelps won but I certainly don't think there is a preponderance of evidence that he touched first. There is the SI shots though and there is another "theory" about those regarding a one-handed touch.
I think the judges saw a tempest called Michael Phelps slams the wall with a wave of frothy foam and the clock stated he won. I personally would defer to the clock as well.
There was a long pause and he was declared the winner. The two golds would have been nice but then Omega would have to explain why they could not time it exactly.
I have a feeling Omega is going back into the garage to figure out how to avoid this in 2012.
Looks like Craig Lord over at Swim News was reading our comments about this post and posted his own article: http://www.swimnews.com/news/view/6403
No one has ever said there was a conspiracy. I suggested the appearance of a conflict of interest exists, not a de facto conflict of interest, but the appearance. You really shouldn't sponsor an athlete that your clocks are judging.
When I did swim competitively, I set records by 1/100th of second, lost them by that amount, made teams and missed 'em, all by 1/100th of second. The great thing about swimming is that is absolutely objective: Hit the wall first, even by 1/100th of second, you win, case closed, story over.
Clock starts when the gun goes, clock stops when you hit the wall. Done.
I found this comment on another blog:
http://olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/16/the-phelps-cavic-photo-finish/
22. August 16th, 2008 1:18 pm
… FINA has video that can slow the finish down to 1/10,000th of a second. They even went as far as to let the Serbian coaches into the room to view it for themselves which is unusual. The coaches couldn’t believe it, but they said it was true. Phelps touched first.
But keep in mind FINA refused to release the video, attributing the decision to the wishes of Omega, Phelps sponsor. Who knows what was said or went on in that room. The point is if they touched at the same 'time' but one swimmer's pressure was greater than another, that sounds like a tie to me. The race is won by touch, not pressure.
I am so unclear on this finish now: Was it who touched harder or who touched first! Are the rules going to be changed to who "stops the clock" first or who touches the wall first?
Do we need to become like horse racing and have photo finishes? But what if a butterfly or breaststroke swimmer touches the wall with the left hand first by a quarter-of-an-inch, will he/she be disqualified due to photographic evidence and did this violation happen here?
As for me, the rules have to clearly state; (and maybe they all ready do), that it's the person who stops the clock not the person who touches first. If it is going to be about touching the wall first than, as you said, Cavic deserves a gold medal as well
I also believe that Omega blew it when they signed a swimmer that they were paid to time. It's like handing conspiracy theorists a motive.
This talk of Cavic touching first but without enough pressure to stop the clock is absurb. If you taped the race, go back again and look at Cavic’s finish. We aren’t talking about a gnat landing unnoticed onto the back of an elephant. Relative to Phelps, he had poor finish, but he still hit that wall hard.
From Omega’s site: http://www.omegawatches.com/index.php?id=1186 “Reacting to very slight pressure from the swimmer's hand but not to the movement of the water, the pads allow swimmers to "stop the clock" with their own hands. The time thus registered automatically becomes the official race time for each swimmer.”
Also, the photographic evidence by SI’s photographer is incontrovertible. The photos don’t show Cavic beating Phelps to the wall. They don’t show a tie between the two swimmers. The photos clearly show Phelps winning by a .01 of a second.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0808/oly.phelps.sequence/content.6.html
Heres the complete link:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/0808/oly.phelps.sequence/content.6.html
A commenter wrote: "This talk of Cavic touching first but without enough pressure to stop the clock is absurd"
Actually, it isn't. And according to FINA, as quoted in the story below, it is in fact about stopping the clock, thus applying enough pressure on the pad, not merely touching, as we old high school swimmers were once told. The naked eye cannot determine from the photos who won, as the story notes.
story below:
BEIJING (AP) -- It really was that close between Michael Phelps and Milorad Cavic.
Official timekeeper Omega released a digital photo sequence of last week's riveting 100-meter butterfly finish at the Olympics -- and it's still not clear to the naked eye just who won.
However, according to Omega timer Silvio Chianese, the results are clear.
"In the third set of images, with Phelps on the left, it is clear he is really pushing hard, while Cavic, on the right, is just arriving," Chianese told The Associated Press on Saturday.
Last week's victory gave Phelps his seventh gold medal of the games, tying him with Mark Spitz for most golds in a single Olympics. A day later, Phelps won his eighth gold as a member of the United States' 400 medley relay squad.
Phelps' time of 50.58 seconds was confirmed after a review down to the 10-thousandth of a second; Cavic's time was 50.59.
Chianese explained that it requires 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) of pressure to activate the touchpad.
"Any less and waves would set it off," Chianese said. "You can't just put your fingertips on the pad, you really have to push it. We explained all this directly after the race to (Cavic) and his coach."
The photos were taken by Omega cameras placed directly above the finish line, slightly angled to include two lanes in each photo.
Chianese said the touchpad is the primary source to determine the race winner, while the photos can only be used as backup material.
"We mainly use the photos for relays, to determine disqualifications if someone dives in before a teammate touches," he said. "This is the only sport where athletes don't cross the finish line. The athlete stops.
"For us, it was clear five minutes after."
Serbia coach Kapor Mladen filed an appeal but accepted the results after reviewing the photos immediately after the race.
FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu had been pressing Omega, one of Phelps' sponsors, to release the images for several days.
"This is very simple. Our sport is about which athlete stops the time by pushing the touchpad," he said. "Omega can't stop the time.
"In our sport we don't have photo finishes like in athletics. In our sport, it's who touches first. Water is a different element."
Copyright 2008 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed
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