Despite cutting-edge tech, Olympic athletes are still tying at the Games — here’s why

On Aug. 4, United States sprinter Noah Lyles and Jamaican sprinter Kishane Thompson seemed to tie for gold in the men’s 100-metre final with a time of 9.79. Yet later, Lyles was awarded the gold medal because he beat Thompson by 0.005 of a second (9.784 to 9.789).

Approximately a week prior, German swimmer Melvin Imoudu and Italian swimmer Ludovico Blu Art Viberti took part in a swim-off for the final spot in the men’s 100-metre breaststroke after both athletes tied with a time of 59.38. Imoudu clinched the final spot by a mere 0.21 seconds.

Both the swimmers and runners tied at the hundredth of a second — so why were the runners separated at the thousandth and the swimmers were not?

Swim-offs, ties and dead heats are common and can lead to double gold, silver or bronze medals during the Olympics. For instance, Italy’s Gianmarco Tamberi and Qatar’s Mutaz Barshim shared a gold medal in high jump at the Tokyo Olympics.

Some viewers will celebrate these accomplishments and others will bemoan the lack of a clear winner. But very few will understand why ties happen, and why they should happen more often.

The dead heat problem

Humans have been trying to develop timing and photo-finish equipment that will solve dead heats for decades. Contemporary photo-finish systems, such as those in use at the Paris Games, are capable of recording athletic performances to the 10-thousandth of a second.

Omega, the official Olympic provider for timing and photo-finish equipment, are using cameras that capture 40,000 frames per second in Paris.

Given this, how is it that swimmers, runners and cyclists continue to tie? It’s because we are human and we play sports in natural environments, both of which are imperfect.

I am a professor of communication studies and my most recent book, Beyond The Finish Line, is an examination of the historical development of photo-finish and timing technology as an attempt to solve the dead heat.

Invention of the photo-finish

As photographic technology developed in the mid-to-late 19th century, photographers began to use cameras to determine placing in sport.

By the early 1880s, numerous photographers, including Eadweard Muybridge, were proclaiming there would never again be a dead heat in sport. The assumption underlying these predictions was that cameras would fix the limitations of the human eye.

Still-camera systems were used in sport decision-making through the late 1800s and early 1900s. Movie-camera systems, using rolling film, were adopted in the early 1930s but were quickly made obsolete with the creation of the slit camera (the true photo-finish camera) in the late 1930s.

Camera and timing technology has continued to advance, but the primary purpose and function of the photo-finish remains the same as the 1930s. This continued advancement has given rise to the misconception that greater precision means greater accuracy.

In other words, sports commentators, journalists and fans typically accept that more decimal places — timing to the 10-thousandth rather than the thousandth or hundredth — provides more accurate results. This, however, is not the case.

Different rules

Each international sporting federation sets rules covering the construction of sports venues. The official measurements of a track, pool or other sport venue include dimensional tolerances, which are allowable differences in measurement.

Swimming’s governing body, FINA, dictates pools must be 50 metres in length, but includes a dimensional tolerance of +0.01 metres at any measurement.

In track, measurements of the 400-metre oval can differ by +/- 0.01 metres. This means two swimmers or runners can cover slightly different distances in their event, with a swimmer in Lane 1 covering 50 metres and one in Lane 6 covering 50.01 metres.

While this difference seems negligible, in high-performance sport, the difference between winning gold and not making the final often comes down to millimetres.

The end result of this is that, in most sports, timing beyond the hundredth of a second is not a reliable indicator of athlete performance. Instead, when capturing millimetres of movement with each frame, you might be capturing allowable differences in the measurement of the pool, track or other venue.

As put to me by one of the industry representatives I interviewed for my book, when you go beyond the hundredth of a second, you could be measuring the difference in thickness of paint on the walls of the pool.

Further complications

Two interrelated factors further complicate the issue. First, governing bodies have different timing and photo-finish policies, which they do not clearly explain.

Swimming records to the hundredth of a second, athletics to the thousandth, skiing to at least the thousandth. And yet all three determine results to the hundredth. Swimming and skiing eliminate all decimals beyond the hundredth, but athletics rounds the third decimal to the nearest hundredth to determine placing in the event of a tie (as was the case with the Lyles and Thompson 100 metre final).

Second, timing companies promote the ability of their equipment to record to the thousandth and beyond. This leaves fans, journalists and commentators trying to understand why the third or fourth decimal place are not used.

As former American ski racer Picabo Street said on the 2014 gold medal tie between Tina Maze and Dominique Gisin: “I’d love to see them go to the thousandth! I’d like to get that timer guy and beat him to get the thousandth out of him.”

Celebrating the humanity of sport

Timing and photo-finish equipment can be stymied by other imperfections, including the athletes themselves. In the 2012 U.S. Olympic track and field trials, Jeneba Tarmoh and Allyson Felix tied for third because Tarmoh’s “rotated and obscured torso” prevented the cameras and photo-finish judge from determining the forward most point of her torso.

And at the 2012 London Olympic Games, as Great Britain’s Mo Farah won gold in the 5,000-metre and 10,000 metre, fans cheered so loud they literally shook the stadium and the photo-finish equipment that was attached to it, producing a less-than-perfect photo-finish image.

The technological abilities of current timing and photo-finish equipment capture information at a level beyond what can be guaranteed in a live environment. In most sports, timing beyond the hundredth of a second is not a reliable indicator of athlete performance.

It’s up to the sport federations to make this clear to athletes, journalists and fans so we can accept the very real human limitations of measuring sport. Given the financial and other rewards that come down to differences of hundredths of a second, wouldn’t it be better that we worry less about solving the dead heat and instead celebrate it as part of the humanity of sport?

Sprinters Lyles and Thompson nearly tied for gold at the 2024 Olympics. If they were swimmers or skiers, this would have been the case, but track uses the third decimal to determine placing. That’s good for Lyles and for TV, but it’s not good for Thompson and, more importantly, it’s not accurate.

Jonathan Finn receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.