Speed of Sound Is Too Slow For the Olympics 255
Hugh Pickens "For decades sports-event organizers have placed speakers behind athletes to convey the sound of an actual pistol but they found that even though the noise came through the speakers all at once, athletes continued to wait for the 'real' sound, ignoring the sounds that came through the speakers ever-so-slightly slowing down the farthest athlete from the gun. Now Rebecca Rosen writes that when the Olympic runners take to their positions on the track later this week, they'll crouch on the ground, ears pricked, and wait for the starting beep played by a 'pistol' that's not a pistol at all, but something more akin to an electronic instrument with only one key. The pistol itself is silent."
Read on for a bit more about the difficulties of timing people with superhuman reaction times.
"A conversation with sprinter Michael Johnson at the Sydney Olympics caused Peter Hürzeler of OMEGA Timing to realize that even with speakers, the speed of sound was still slowing down the farthest athletes. Johnson's reaction time, Hurzeler said, 'was 440 thousandths of a second. Normally athletes leave between 130 and 140 thousandths of a second. ... I asked him, why did you have such a bad starting time?' Turned out, Johnson was in the ninth position, and the sound of the gun was reaching him too slowly."In addition after a four year developmental process, a new false start detection system is being introduced this year that will abandon movement in exchange for 'measurement' of pound-force against the back block to determine sprinters reaction times. 'We are measuring the time between the starting gun and when the athlete is moving because to leave the starting block they had to push against and this power is very high' says Hurzeler. 'We did a test last year with Asafa Powell and he was pushing 240 kilograms (529 lbs.) [so] as soon as he gives the time to push against the starting block, it means he will like to leave and we are measuring this in thousandths of seconds and if somebody is leaving before one hundredth thousandth of second, it's automatically a recall, it's a false start.' In track every event is timed to 1/10,000th of a second, and Omega takes 2,000 pictures per second from right before the start of a race to its finish, as backup.
"New touch pads, starting blocks, and timers have also been introduced for swimming."
Not sure... (Score:2)
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In 2012 it doesn't seem impossible to put a speaker+light in all the starting blocks.
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In 2012 it doesn't seem impossible to put a speaker+light in all the starting blocks.
In 2012 it doesn't seem impossible to put an individual timing gate on each lane so sub millisecond differences in sound propagation don't matter, yet they'll be running "about the same time" close enough to meet the olympic goal of pointless dramatic theatrics.
Maybe someday we'll have "mass produced electronics"...
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Re:Not sure... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, that's easily accomplished technically. Except that's not the point of these particular races. Some races are against the clock, many of the cycling races for example. Shorter races, however, aren't against the clock; they are racer against racer. The clock is just there to compare across races and time. So, since the racers are racing against each other, not against the clock, there is all this fussing over starting at the same time.
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Speed of light (Score:2)
Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Informative)
Because we typically react a bit faster to auditory stimuli.
(around 30-50 ms faster than visual stimuli)
Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Informative)
30ms seems to be the most common figure cited. 50ms was an aggregate of other studies I found (from a simple google search) which were typically in the 40-60ms range.
http://biae.clemson.edu/bpc/bp/Lab/110/reaction.htm [clemson.edu]
Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Funny)
I suggest electrical stimuli - 240v should suffice
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Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Funny)
I suggest electrical stimuli - 240v should suffice
Better be DC or high freq AC (like a tesla coil) because an AC waveform has a longer wavelength than the kind of measurements they're already complaining about.
For example a anal probe activated at a voltage zero crossing would take around 5 ms to reach peak voltage at 50 hz, but the americans would whine because they're used to 60Hz which only takes 4ms to reach peak voltage. And the other competitors would whine because the 220 volt probe would reach the 110 volt level that the americans train with in only about 2 ms, whereas they're used to waiting until a voltage maximum at 5ms to react. As you can see even low frequency RF aka "power electronics" is all rather complicated. This is before power factor correction, where athletes with inductive or capacitive digestive systems would lead/lag and the nervous system is inherently current mode logic anyway (or is it? Some MD or bio guy needs to weigh in) (hmm, digestive system is shaped inductively all curly and stuff, but digestion is all about capacity aka a capacitive reactance... anyone other than space alien abductors got a smith chart plot of a human digestive system based on probe data?)
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Would it matter, since it would still be a level playing field?
Re:Speed of light (Score:4, Informative)
Just wanted to add...have you been to a drag strip?
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They should just use a light instead of sound.
Even at school we waved a flag to start because if we went by sound it would introduce an error into the timing.
Back in my track days, we were taught to go by the smoke of the pistol, not the bang. When did this change?
Re:Speed of light (Score:5, Funny)
Back in my track days, we were taught to go by the smoke of the pistol, not the bang.
For that to even be remotely effective, your track team must have smelled really really fast.
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Because starter pistols use invisible smoke? have you never seen a starter pistol in real life?
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Audience does. Athletes, Not so much.
When was the last time you saw a sprinter with his head sideways looking at the starter pistol at the start?
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I swam competitively for three years, and normally watched for the flash of the starters pistol.
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I'm guessing that head-down is a better posture for a sprinter when he's in the blocks.
First! (Score:3, Funny)
Re:First! (Score:5, Funny)
Appropriate, for once...
You must have been waiting for the sound.
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Appropriate, for once...
You must have been waiting for the sound.
Let's just say that he was in the slow lane.
LED strip along the ground. (Score:5, Interesting)
Why not just lights? Works for F1.
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Re:LED strip along the ground. (Score:4, Funny)
Then what would the blind athletes do?
Run after their dogs...
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Run into things.
Timing for swim events (Score:2)
When acting as a timing judge for swim team events, we have always been told to watch for the strobe flash from the start signal. It is supposed to be much more consistent.
Overkill (Score:2, Insightful)
Why not just move the starting gun to behind the athletes? The further back it is placed, the more equal the distance to each athlete. It doesn't get as much media attention though.
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Meh. Just point the gun at the athletes, and they'll easily make up for the few hundreths lost at the start.
Win-win, I'd say.
This saved me once (Score:5, Funny)
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So the moral of your story is that basic physics saved your fat lardass from having to do some PT?
Sounds like a valid use to me...
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...a whole 60m run. Less than ten seconds of exercise. I guess it's true what they say about the Navy.
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The moral is that you apparently can sass your CO and get away with it.
I seriously doubt getting into an argument would have gotten you anything less than a captain's mast for your insolence.
So I'm calling bullshit.
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So I'm calling bullshit.
Unless the reg was the starting gun is supposed to be behind the runners at the start, so rather than make a big case of how they screwed up administering the test, a little pencil whipping is better overall for the fleet...
Also at least in the army, some officers have a sense of humor. CO was probably laughing too hard not to pass him. For example we had to weigh in and do the idiotic BMI thing, so all us weightlifters failed the BMI test and had to be weighed in (again) and taped by an officer to docume
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It is easy to compute... (Score:2)
hamster wheels! (Score:5, Interesting)
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what is a race? Is it to see who has the fastest reaction time, or who runs the fastest, or both?
Obviously both are a part of this type of race. Previously due to necessity, but now in the ages of high speed cameras and other tech, just due to tradition. If they simply wanted to see who could do the fastest 100m from a flying start, they could just let everyone start whenever they want, and measure their performance from 10m to 100m.
The articles math is wrong, but the premise holds (Score:5, Informative)
There are 8 lanes on a track, each of which are 1.27 meters wide. There are 7 lane widths between a head in lane 1 and a head in lane 8. This works out to 8.89 meters. The speed of sound is 340.29 meter/sec. The leads to a worst case difference of .026 seconds between lane 1 and lane 8. The difference between bronze and gold in the 2008 Olympics Men's 100 Meters is 0.22 seconds. So at first it seems to not be an issue, but the difference between bronze and 4th place was .02 seconds. This indicates that lane position and the speed of sound could have an effect on the outcome of an event.
Re:The articles math is wrong, but the premise hol (Score:5, Informative)
For the 200m and 400m, they have staggered starts along the curve so the distance between sprinters is much greater.
Er... Basic geometry? (Score:5, Insightful)
So. Rather than have the pistol in line with the row at one side, how about having it in the middle halving the dis-advantage at the extreme(s). Even better, have the pistol central but step back 10 - 20 foot or so and that reduces the differential even further. Seems more practical and a lot more inexpensive than a super dooper electronic system.
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Did you think the Olympics(TM)(C)(R) were about competition and fairness instead of about money, bribes, kickbacks, and the worst kind of patriotism?
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And then they would have to adjust the timing for the false start detection to be based on when the sound reaches the athletes.
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You could eliminate the error entirely by arranging the runners in a circle and put the pistol in the center. Make it up to the judges whether the runners face in or out.
Traditions. (Score:3)
What confuses me is that the story says they're using speakers, meaning every player hears the sound at the same time. So where's the issue?
It seems that the speakers convey the sound of a guy with an actual gun further behind. But why aren't the players training themselves to react to the first sound, disregarding the real noise. More importantly, why the hell is there even a real gun out there if they've got the speakers? They couldn't have started using a prerecorded sound years ago?
It appears to me that the real story here is that these officials are so slavish to hopelessly outdated traditions that they'll continue sticking to them even long after it's become evident that it's detrimental. It reminds me of FIFA's long time refusal to accept replays or goal line technology.
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What confuses me is that the story says they're using speakers, meaning every player hears the sound at the same time. So where's the issue?
It seems that the speakers convey the sound of a guy with an actual gun further behind. But why aren't the players training themselves to react to the first sound, disregarding the real noise. More importantly, why the hell is there even a real gun out there if they've got the speakers? They couldn't have started using a prerecorded sound years ago?
It appears to me that the real story here is that these officials are so slavish to hopelessly outdated traditions that they'll continue sticking to them even long after it's become evident that it's detrimental. It reminds me of FIFA's long time refusal to accept replays or goal line technology.
You've got that right. Look at the electronic "pistol" picture in the article. They designed it to look like a large gun. Why not just a small button held in the hand?
Better yet...nothing. Just have the speakers play the "start" sound and the runners take off. They're looking at the ground when in the starting blocks anyways, not the guy standing off to the side.
What we need ... (Score:2)
Jargon (Score:2)
There was an article on /. where it was argued that journalists should use more jargon if it helped convey the message. After reading "thousandth of a second" *four* times in the summary, yes, please, just say millisecond!!
New starting method. (Score:2)
Stick an electrode up their arse. When it is time to go, zap them. About 50,000 volts will do nicely.
All joking aside, they really could just use lights. Or is the speed of light too slow as well?
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
That's a kilometer in three seconds.
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Huh? 100m in a third of a second is a kilometer?
I think the calculation you were looking for is:
8 lanes * 4 feet = 32 feet or 10 meters
10/330 = 0.03 seconds
so yes 0.03 sec is not very much and certainly not 0.3 second
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It isn't just the width of the lanes, of course. For some races, the sprinters are started with a considerable offset from one another along the track to account for inside-outside lane length differences.
0.03 sec is the difference between Gold and Silver (Score:5, Informative)
... 0.03 sec is not very much ...
0.03 sec is enormous in the context of the Olympics. The difference between Gold and Silver medals is sometimes 0.01 sec.
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Let's just say all of the athletes are special and give everyone a participation trophy.
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As others already pointed out, you're not exactly a math genious.
Also, the article mentions they take a shitload of images and detemine the winner
this way (-> http://goo.gl/vKZFa [goo.gl] - chest is, what counts).
Furthermore the speed of sound could easily explain a difference of let's say 0.02s (equivalent to ~ 6.5m)
and as you said yourself, sometimes that does make the difference.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Funny)
You Americans still don't get this metric stuff do you.
Of course we do. There are 1.6 kilometres to the gallon, and 3 litres to the American non-statutory country mile (the liquid mile, that is; a dry mile is 3 9/8 bushels longer, except in Kansas where it's *another* 7 degrees higher and isn't allowed to be measured at all on a Sunday).
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Uh.. wait... how wide is a Kansas Sunday again?
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Uh.. wait... how wide is a Kansas Sunday again?
It depends on how many miles you have to go to get to a state line so that you can buy beer on said Sunday.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
You Americans still don't get this metric stuff do you.
His problem was not in misunderstanding the metric system, his problem was in failing to do simple algebra.
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Algebra isn't important. (Score:2)
Right?
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"[Each] day finds some six million high school students and two million college freshmen struggling with algebra. [...] Why do we subject American students to this ordeal? I’ve found myself moving toward the strong view that we shouldn’t."
"Making mathematics mandatory prevents us from discovering and developing young talent."
From the NYT Jul 28
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/29/opinion/sunday/is-algebra-necessary.html?&pagewanted=all [nytimes.com]
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If you think algebra was required for that math, then you already failed.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it funny that the US gets criticized for not being metric, when the UK isn't either. Officially sure, but they all talk in pounds and stone and ounces.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Funny)
The UK system is easy to remember.
Beer is in Pints. Except when it is Foreign. Then it should be in pints, but them damn foreigners don't know what they are doing.
Milk is in pints.
All other liquids are in metric.
People are measured in imperial. Except newborns who are metric.
All food, except steaks are metric.
Distances when using a road are imperial. All other times metric.
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That pretty much sums it up.
Other distances are imperial e.g. we still have furlongs in horse racing, and horses are still in hands.
Fuel economy is still typically talked of in miles per gallon.
Cold temperatures are in Celsius, hot in Farenheit.
Clothes are still normally measured in inches.
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And, to add even more confusion, those are IMPERIAL gallons, which are quiet a bit off (15% or so) of US gallons.
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Entirely true, when we use Imperial, we use Imperial :)
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:4, Informative)
The fuel economy one is particularly problematic for UK vs US measurement.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallon#Comparison_of_historic_gallons [wikipedia.org]
US uses the 1/128th of an oz - similar to other imperial measurements where it is powers of two for easy division.
(16 tablespoons in a cup, 4 cups in a quart, 4 quarts in a gallon).
The brits use 1/160th of an oz for some odd historical reason.
So, when I told someone my car was averaging 38mpg between fillups, he thought it was pretty bad, since for him that would be equiv to 31.6mpg in the US.
When I read a car report from Britain and I read that the car is getting 45mpg, I get excited at first, before I realise that's about what my car gets.
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Yep, and it means when UK people hear about US gas guzzlers, it sounds far worse than it is (although it's often not that great to start with). Read a car report that lists 62.8mpg instead (there's plenty out there for tax band reasons, even a BMW 520d gets that), and that way it's pretty good whichever way you cut it.
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Ugh. I mean. Oz is 1/128th of a gallon or 128 oz in a gallon
Other way around from how I said it.
Re:I call bullshit. (Score:5, Informative)
I find it funny that the US gets criticized for not being metric, when the UK isn't either. Officially sure, but they all talk in pounds and stone and ounces.
All actual work is done in metric.
The imperial holdovers are in a few bits of daily life: road speeds and distances (but the roads and cars are built using metric measurements), human height and weight (but doctors always use metric), beer volume in pubs.
(Other daily life things are metric: temperature, buying and cooking food, building construction etc.)
It's stupid, and I wish we'd just finish the transition, but it's nowhere near as annoying as the US.
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All serious work is done in metric in the US. Imperial is used in everyday life stuff by the people, same as the UK.
Re:I call bullshit (Score:2, Informative)
I check and review a lot of engineering papers, I see about 3x the rate of order of magnitude type errors like this one with metric units compared to conventional units. Even from "native metric users".
Speaking of calling bullshit on something, the premise of this article is utter BS as well. The difference in time of arrival of the sound based on lane position is on the order of 30 msec, worst-case, not 300-ish.
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You Americans still don't get this metric stuff do you.
Use the right tool for the job, in this case imperial. We're talking about feet in an olympic article about running and feet, so use feet to measure. Not millionths of the distance from Paris to the north pole or wavelengths of cesium or WTF arbitrary measurement a metre is. Use feet. Yes, it would be dumb to use human feet to measure an interplanetary space probe, but this is totally appropriate.
Sound travels at 5 secs/mile as anybody who's survived a thunderstorm and counted miles away by fives knows.
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Use the right tool for the job, in this case imperial. We're talking about feet in an olympic article about running and feet, so use feet to measure.
Can we use my feet? They're about 27cm long.
(In case you hadn't noticed, the race is measured in metres, and almost all the athletes measure all distances in metres.)
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Highest bidder gets to hear the starting gun first
Why not skip that and just auction the medals
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In US Dollars the metal is worth: The gold medal is only worth around $650.
Silver around $310
Bronze under $5
There are some older ones available ever so often on ebay they don't get that much unless releated to something very special.
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That will be in the 2014 Olympics...
Text to 55031 if you think the USA should win.
Text to 55032 if you think Slovenia should win.
Text to 55033 if you think Ireland should win.
Text to 55034 if you think nobody wins and the race should be re-started.
All texts cost $4.95 and goes directly to the Olympic committee bribery fund.
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It's more like 10 meters. Which means the difference in time is 0.03s, which is (at the 100m sprint) significant, and can mean the difference between winning or losing, or between a world record or no record.
Re:Physics, people! (Score:5, Funny)
Great, now that the "real" athletes are also complaining about ping times, can we make FPS olympic?
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Then how about putting the guy with the starting pistol in the middle of the group? you know it's a lot easier to have that guy walk a little bit closer to the middle of the starting pack.
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Maybe better, but still not good enough. Think about the staggered starts for longer races, and the fact that some of these events are won/lost in times of under .02 seconds. Maybe they could use some kind of light at the front of each starting position.
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0.44s - 0.135s = 0.305s. Speed of sound is 343m/s. Are we supposed to believe that the farthest starting position is about 343m/s * 0.305s = 104m further away from the pistol than the nearest? The guy's just slow.
I'm guessing you've never been to a track meet ...
In events like the 400m (one complete circuit of a standard track oval), people run in their lane the entire distance around the track. Because the outside lanes are longer than the inside lanes and the finish line is directly across the track, the starting positions are staggered to make the distance ran equal. Yes, that is a significant distance between the fellow in the outside lane (close to the starter pistol) and the fellow in the inside lane (far fr
Re:Why not use lights? (Score:4, Funny)
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What about the blind?
Somehow there still exists at least one human being in 2012 who still hasn't played with housepets and lasers. I would assume guide dogs behave similarly, or could be trained.
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If the speed of sound would be a potential factor in determining who wins, it counts as a tie.
I have a feeling we'd see a lot of deaf people at least tying for first in the Olympics then.
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In F1 the drivers are looking down the track, not at the floor.
Plus sound works better as a starting stimulus (as somebody pointed out above).
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If you jump the gun you get disqualified.
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Not at all!
Having them wounded and limping to the finish will make the race take significantly longer!
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More time for the main event, advertising. It does make perfect sense, it may just be ahead of the time.
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Shoot spectators? There are loads of them, so if you lock them all in you could probably draw it out for the duration of the event...
Note for British police, politicians, and other idiots: The above is a (weak) joke, and I am not seriously advocating shooting olympic attendees. Removing the lead before making them into soylent green adds too much to the processing costs.
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make the track shorter and put a single first aid or trauma kit at the finish line...
Second part of the race is who can stop bleeding the fastest....
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I think it comes down to its more interesting to watch a race rather then time trials. Also the crowd cheering for someone crossing the finishing line first, but really they came in fourth would just be silly.
Perhaps they should put the superior ranking athletes the furthest away from the gun since they could make up for the fractions of a second delay through superior skill. That would at least give the slow white dudes a chance.