Just watched Canada and China tie for bronze in the women’s 100m backstroke. Is this a new thing? I don’t think I have ever seen two people not on a team standing on the podium, and two flags being raised in the bronze position. Could there be a tie for gold? Or a three way tie? JasoninHalifax, where are you!
…and if there was a two way tie for silver, would they not award a bronze?
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Not new. There was at least one tie in 2012 in one of the men’s middle distance free races. And I think Ervin tied for gold(?) back in 2000. I’m sure there have been others.
All I know is the Canadian men need to get lessons from the women. The ladies are swimming awesome!
Interesting. I was about to go on a “the new generation is growing up soft” rant, sharing medals and all, but I guess it’s just the swimmers who are soft ;-).
Interesting. I was about to go on a “the new generation is growing up soft” rant, sharing medals and all, but I guess it’s just the swimmers who are soft ;-).
Soft!
Just watched Canada and China tie for bronze in the women’s 100m backstroke. Is this a new thing? I don’t think I have ever seen two people not on a team standing on the podium, and two flags being raised in the bronze position. Could there be a tie for gold? Or a three way tie? JasoninHalifax, where are you!
Times are awarded to the hundredth- was the thousandth in the 1970s but it was changed afterwards- system could handle thousandths of a second on the clock end, but there could be slight differences in how the pads are set in each lane, and they don’t want to decide a race by 0.003 if one pad was set 0.02 milimeters differently than the one in the next lane.
First tie in Olympic swimming was Carrie Steniseiffer and Nancy Hogshead in the 100 free in Los Angeles in 1984- two golds and no silvers were awarded. There was also a tie for gold in the same event in the WCs a few years back, IIRC.
Just watched Canada and China tie for bronze in the women’s 100m backstroke. Is this a new thing? I don’t think I have ever seen two people not on a team standing on the podium, and two flags being raised in the bronze position. Could there be a tie for gold? Or a three way tie? JasoninHalifax, where are you!
Times are awarded to the hundredth- was the thousandth in the 1970s but it was changed afterwards- system could handle thousandths of a second on the clock end, but there could be slight differences in how the pads are set in each lane, and they don’t want to decide a race by 0.003 if one pad was set 0.02 milimeters differently than the one in the next lane.
First tie in Olympic swimming was Carrie Steniseiffer and Nancy Hogshead in the 100 free in Los Angeles in 1984- two golds and no silvers were awarded. There was also a tie for gold in the same event in the WCs a few years back, IIRC.
In 2012, Sun Yang and Taehwan Park tied for the silver in 1:44.93, behind Agnel’s 1:43.14, and no bronze was awarded. This year Sun went slightly faster to win in 1:44.65.
In 2000, Anthony Ervin and Gary Hall, Jr, tied for the gold in the 50 free in 21.98, with Van Hoogenband taking the bronze in 22.03.
Andre Degrasse tied for bronze in the 100m at the last world track championships. So 100m runners are soft too.
Just look at those pillowy soft bastards!
I would think a quick post race game of rock-paper-scissors would sort things out.
Thing is, I bet someone in timing knows who was faster to the thousandths.
To break the tie, I propose that they have them in a tethered tug-of-war and swim them towards opposite ends of the pool. The first swimmer to drag his opponent 5 meters from the initial position gets the medal. The competition must be done in the stroke of the event.
…and if there was a two way tie for silver, would they not award a bronze?
That’s correct. Standard procedure with any sport really (apart from Judo, they always have two bronzes due to the repechage system)
Brilliant. this could be an Olympic event all by itself. Can someone figure out a way to harness two or four swimmers together as a team?
They used to time swimming down to the thousandths of a second. In 1972 the 400IM gold was decided by 1/1000. After that, the rule was changed to determine placing to the 100th of a second.
Speaking of ties, in the prelims, if there is a tie for the last qualifying spot, they have a swim off and the two swimmers go head to head to see who gets the spot. I was at a meet once where there was a tie and then the swimmers tied in the swim off so they had to swim it again. It takes a lot to get a crowd excited at an all day age group meet but the fans went crazy over that!
I’ve known personally hundreds of people, (including me and 2 of my 3 kids) who have made at least some money directly off their swimming skills.
Actually, the timing systems do go down to 1/1000th. The people running the systems can see the times to 1/1000th on most systems. And, many scoreboard systems will put the order of finish up based on the actual time to 1/1000th so even if the scoreboard says its a tie, often the name on top has a faster time.
But - while electronic swim timing systems are accurate, they are not really accurate down to 1/1000th. Individual touch pads can behave slightly differently and not have exactly the same pressure sensitivity. Then there is the whole issue of whether the pool end is exactly square. Someone can do the math but it does not take much of an error in construction to make lane 1 just enough shorter than lane 8 to give someone a 1/1000th advantage. And for those reasons, it was not too long after electronic timing came in that they made the rule that placing is determined only to 1/100th.