Olympic factoid: snap happy

Many will be familiar with photofinish as it is quite common across competitions at all levels. Photofinish was used as far back as the 1948 Olympics when it determined the finish of the men's 100m.

On the Paris 2024 Olympics website, you can often view a still of the photofinish of a race - just click on the photofinish camera icon at the top of each track event's results page.

But do you know how photofinish works? It's not a video recording; it's actually a series of photographs taken of a few millimeters on the leading edge of the finish line. The photos can be taken at 2000 times a second!

The photos are then combined on the photofinish computer to provide a time-based view of the finish line. As the system is also electronically connected to the starting system, when a vertical line cursor placed to line up with an athlete's torso (from where all times are measured), the system can show the time the athlete crossed the finish line and is deemed to have finished the race.

The photofinish camera can be positioned quite high up in a stadium so on occasion you might get a bird taking the win on the final image!

If you've ever seen a shot of the photofinish you might wonder why some athletes have 'ski-legs'. This is because their legs (for example) are moving slower than the rest of their body at the point when they crossed the line - most likely because the athlete actually stepped on the line at the finish.

At higher level events, the photofinish can be combined with a normal video that shows the athletes crossing the line from the front – this can help determine which figure in the photofinish image is which athlete when numbers can't be read easily.

Thanks to Mark Delgado for his input.

If your club or facility is considering installing photofinish,
why not apply for a Club Improvement Fund grant to help with costs?