Not in 1952! The hand timing in 1952 was horrible! Look up Bob Sparks'
deciphering of ET . the quartet of runners given 10.4 and the two (Sukhraev,
treloar) given 10.5 in the 100m final actually ran over 10.70!
UG
Quoting "P. N. Heidenstrom" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
> On Fri, 1 Jun 2001 10:36:09 -0700 (PDT)
> Dan Kaplan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote,
> quoting Charlie Francis' book, Speed Trap,
>
> ". . . But in 1968, when the IAAF
> began to make the transition from hand to electronic timing, it
> bungled
> the job. As an electronic clock would start the instant the gun was
> fired
> (eliminating a human timer's reaction gap), times would be more than
> two
> tenths of a second slower. Rather than adjust for the change by
> putting
> the clocks on a delay, as proposed by East Germany, the IAAF let the
> new
> and slower times tand. In so doing, they severed the 100 metres' link
> to
> its past progression of world records dating from 1896. They had, in
> effect, created a new event."
>
> Comment:
>
> The IAAF first implemented photo-timing at the 1964 OG
> at Tokyo. The timing had to incorporate a delay of 0.05s,
> and times were rounded off to the nearest 1/10s. Hence
> a time could appear to be up to 1/10s faster than it
> really was. A study of FULLY automatic times from the
> Games of 1952, 1956, and 1960 shows that many 100m times
> were certainly not more than 1/10s faster than the
> official (and recognised) hand times.
>
> The built-in delay was removed before the 1972 Games.
> Rounding-off [to the nearest 1/10s] was changed [to
> the full or next full 1/10s] in 1977 and dropped altogether
> in 1981. These dates apply to races NG 400m; for longer
> distances there were variations, but now all FAT is, of
> course, to the full or next full 1/100s.
>
> Just in case no-else has pointed out Mr Francis' error.
>
> --"that horse's ass, P.N. from New Zealand" - M M Rohl
>
>
