News Omega, the official timekeeper at the Sochi Olympic and Paralympic Games, has introduced major innovations in timekeeping for the bobsleigh event. As in many sports where speed is decisive, results are often hang on a tenth, a hundredth or even a thousandth of a second. On a bobsleigh run, an advantage of one tenth of a second at the start can result in an advantage of three tenths of a second at the finish.
For competitions held at the Sanki Sliding Centre the team of timekeepers installed pairs of laser photocells along the track to measure start and finish times, intermediary times and also the maximum speed attained by each competitor before crossing the finishing line.
With an enhanced resolution of 1 µs (one millionth of a second) the Quantum marked the beginning of a new generation of Omega Timing products when it was premiered at the London 2012 Olympic Games. The resolution is 100 times greater than with previous devices. The Quantum also delivers precision of 0.1 parts per million (ppm). This means that there is a maximum variation of only one second out of ten million seconds – or one second every 116 days.
Other innovation introduced by Omega during the competitions of the bobsleigh, the Measurement Unit, a new piece of equipment that makes important run-in data instantly available to spectators viewing bobsleigh races on television. The innovative new device consists of a speed sensor, a 3D acceleration sensor and a 3D gyro-sensor, all of which acquire data in real time.
February 19, 2014
