Olympic athletics no longer use pistols for start of events

Since the year 1896, when the Olympics have become more or less the way they are today, speed trials in athletics have started with a pistol shot, alerting all competitors that they can already start moving. However, this same pistol is now considered obsolete and "too slow" to continue its function.

The London Olympics presented the world with a new way to start the race. It is an “electronic beep” whose sound can transcend 1, 240 km / h (or 340, 29 m / s in air) - which is the speed of gun shooting and the equivalent of sound speed in air.

But what is the problem with the "lack of speed" of the shot? According to The Atlantic, as soon as the shot is fired from the pistol, it first reaches the ears of the contestants in the lanes closest to the gun's location. The time difference between the former who listens to the latter is only a few milliseconds, but in Olympic terms this may mean the difference between the gold and the silver medal.

So the solution found by the International Olympic Committee, in partnership with Omega - which is the official event timing company - was to signal the match with an electronic beep emitted by a speaker behind each of the lanes. The gesture of raising the “gun” before the start is still going on, but the apparatus in the judge's hands makes no sound.

Whether this will really change anything in the test results is not yet clear. But at least the test conditions are now more egalitarian.

Source: The Atlantic