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Comment by MR4D | Hacker News Reader

Fascinating article, and great to see a problem solver at work.

However, I question humanity’s sanity when we declare a winner in a 216.75km long race by someone who (possibly) won by 0.016 seconds (and poorly declared either way from the article).

At what point do races become a tie instead of 1st/2nd ? Just because we can doesn’t mean we should. I mean, if we had a camera that could take 350,000 photos per second does that mean we should use it to declare the winner?

I remember this issue came up in swimming a few years ago, and people were arguing that the timing measurement was finer than the tolerance for error of the measurement of pressure on the pad. We still talk about that race venue today: https://www.theringer.com/2020/7/29/21345181/milorad-cavic-m...

This article seems to make the argument quite well: https://olympics.time.com/2012/07/27/technologys-touch-how-a...

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With regards to swimming, I once read they measure times only up to hundredths of seconds, because the individual lanes of the pool cannot be built to be the same length within a margin of error that would warrant measuring times more accurately.

https://deadspin.com/this-is-why-there-are-so-many-ties-in-s...

Same reason why in athletics the starter pistol sound is transmitted via a speaker behind each individual lane. Otherwise the speed of sound would disadvantage the lane furthest from the starter pistol by more than a hundredth of a second.

Thanks, I was wandering how they account for the speed of sound but was lazy to google )

They could just trigger the starter from a long distance behind or in front of the line instead.

Or use a visual cue. I've always wondered why they need a pistol.

When I ran cross country in high school our coach always said to go on the sight of the smoke not the sound of the shot. This was when the starter was in front of the whole mass of runners. Not sure if it ever helped me given we were mass starting a race that lasted for 3ish miles.

If you were by yourself, that would only shave a fraction of a second off your 5k time. However, getting out in front of a big mass start also helps you avoid getting caught in "traffic", which can really bog you down.

Sprinters, for whom small margins make the biggest difference, are most often not looking at the starter. Granted, could be because they don't have to because someone is firing a .32 caliber blank nearby, but that horse has left the barn for now.

Interesting factoid: the human brain processes sound faster that sight [1]. The difference cited in the paper below is roughly 40 ms, which is small in an absolute sense, but compared to the relative time tolerances we are discussing here in this parent article, it's huge!

Naturally this effect cancels out if all competitors get the same visual cue, however it's still to the benefit of athletes and fans to want quicker reaction times:

- Shorter overall reaction times means faster races means better records

- The standard deviation of reaction times is smaller for sound than for sight, which means the reaction time is more fair to all

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4456887/

Vision is amazingly sluggish. Turning an incoming photon into a nerve impulse involves a whole mess of slow (and fascinating) chemistry, just to leave the rod or code. Once it does that, the resulting signal bounces around the retina and then a huge portion of the brain before it's available for "action."

The auditory system, on the other hand, is optimized for speed. It has a giant synapse (=connections between cells), called the Calyx of Held, that is specialized for extremely fast (sub-millisecond), reliable transmission between cells. They're really cool looking: https://www.eurekalert.org/multimedia/pub/213595.php?from=44...

At least some swim meets use a light and a buzzer. I first encountered that many years ago at Gallaudet, a school for the deaf. I think that has become common at all swim races. It certainly makes sense to not exclude racers who can't hear.

I did note at the time that the gunshot sound put an extra oomph into the start over a buzzer. No idea whether that actually made a difference to my time, but it sure got my heart rate up.

My father was a world-class competitive swimmer and is a Deaf man. His stories about needing to rely on a visual cue when his hearing competitors benefited from the pistol sound were always fun -- as is the joy on his face when he narrates that he always beat them anyways.

If the starter pistol is too far away, there's a chance to see the smoke before hearing it.

I don't think the competition really is: who's the fastest in a 216km race? Rather: who's strong enough to endure a 200km tour, and then still have the energy for a 16km race? I say this half jokingly only.

That's the beauty of cycling isn't it? Sometimes the race-winning move is decided in a team car 150km from the line, and the next day it comes down to millimeters. This unpredictability is what keeps most viewers hooked to their TV sets for 6 hours on big race days.

Sometimes, as in when it happens, people might still be talking about it decades later (I'm only slightly exaggerating)

But all spectator sports seem to gain much their appeal from the imperfections that make them special. In road cycling, it's the imbalance of many hours of what computer gamers would call mostly cooperative PvE serving as a buildup for the few seconds of the finish (unless it's a solo, which is super attractive for the audience because it's rare, but would be rather boring if it wasn't).

I don't think this changes anything about the point being made by the person you were replying to though, unless I'm missing something

He's saying "it's not a 200km race, it's a 199km 'warmup' followed by a 1km sprint", so yes, it does change the perspective on how to judge how tight a race is

Many or most of the competitors would disagree it's not a race until KM 199. Only in boring flat races where the pack stays all together and there are no serious breakaways is that true.

I know next to nothing about competitive cycling (I'm a commuter and occasional touring cyclist) but would it be accurate to say it's a strategy game for something like 180 km interspersed with 20 km total of racing?

I know, but for someone who wonders how a 200+km race can be decided at photo-finish it would maybe be more intuitive to split the race into "regions", with a sprint at the end between those in the lead. And that sprint is usually very similar to what a normal sprint stage would look like. I can see the point of asking "is it really necessary to separate them if they've been pretty much equal for the whole time?", but to me at least it does improve the experience of watching the race unfold on a few levels. It's supposed to be a competition, after all.

This is really a team sport. There is a lot of strategy that goes into aligning the proper resources to win the race - From controlling the field, pulling in breakaways, supporting your teammates through mechanicals and still having the energy to finish out the final sprint. I would suggest catching the 30min breakdowns of the race on NBC Sports and the Latern Rouge on Youtube to better understand the race in a compressed format.

For the people here who are really in to bike racing, Chris Horner's "Butterfly Effect" videos are an interesting look at tactics.

Chris Horner could have been another Lemond or Armstrong if his career had played out better. He did win a grand tour though to prove that ability.

I occasionally see him around town here in Bend, which is kind of cool. His was... a difficult era in pro cycling. But putting that aside, his analysis of tactics is good, I think, and of interest for those looking to learn more about how a team runs things.

His Butterfly Effect segments should be included in all of the NBC Sports cycling events.

The Butterfly Effect segments should be added to all of the NBC Sports cycling coverage.

I was in a conversation with some professional runners. A hobbyist in the same club asked, "when does it stop hurting?" They laughed and said, "It never stops. It's about how much you can make the other guy hurt."

Cycling races are much the same with a team dynamic included. It's a matter of choosing between setting a pace that a sprint finisher can't follow over a long period, or sheltering a sprinter from the wind so he can put in maximal effort at the end of the race. There are all sorts of variations based on strength of team, weather, terrain, luck, politics between teams, race goals, etc...

The other famous quote in this regard is "It never gets easier, you just go faster."

Rule #10, my second favorite rule only to Rule #5.

At the elite level of endurance sports everyone is in excellent condition and has optimal genetics. What really makes a winner is the ability to suffer.

Regarding the swimming issue, there is no underwater photo at the website which you linked, but one can google it, and it clearly shows that Phelps came in second. Arguments were made by Omega that the finish pad did not register Cavic's press on time since the force used was not enough.

Moral of the story is that human error (be that of a mechanical nature) will always exist, but more care should be given in competitive sports. If you do not have the means to decide the winner, call it a tie, but if you do, even at the cost of a 350,000 photo/sec camera, then do it, but by all means do it correctly, because it might cost someone a gold medal at the Olympic games, and for the sake of people who put their life into competitive sports, this should not happen.

On the contrary.. Phelps is on the left here: https://www.si.com/.image/c_limit/MTY4MTg2NTcxMTk0MzEyMDY0/p...

Apart from Omega's and FINA's statements that Cavic touched first, but Phelps was the first to trigger the mechanism with enough force, you can find the photos here

https://static01.nyt.com/images/blogs/olympics/phelpscavic53...

https://media2.s-nbcnews.com/j/msnbc/Components/Photo/August...

https://bloximages.newyork1.vip.townnews.com/herald-dispatch...

It is a shame to lose a gold medal this way. Sometimes, however, there is nothing you can do.

> 216.75km long race by someone who (possibly) won by 0.016 seconds

In cycling races that are not time trials it is disadvantaged to be in the lead until the last 0.016 seconds. The peleton in the video was quickly catching up to the three lead riders not because they were tired but rather because they were fighting to be in third position. It is just as much like a strategic game of chess as an endurance sport. Because of this, the game only works if a contender can win by a hair's length.

To me at least the length of the race just makes the situation less likely to occur. The problem is still in play for a 4 km pursuit or in theory the transcontinental race (though the likelihood of a sprint finish is near 0).

In general I think in sport we should use replay tech to eliminate errors that human judges can make, not improve accuracy beyond what was possible for them to see (because fundamentally these are philosophically vague). And then just have rules for ties that are good for the sport: ties go to the runner in baseball, offsides go to the attacking player in soccer (I believe the dutch do something like this by using thicker lines for their VAR?), etc.

But with cycling the whole game is decided by the finish, so I think that makes a bit harder to come up with a satisfying approach.

I was curious what the actual rules are about calling ties. Apparently if there's no photo finish tech and the sprint between 2 riders can't be decided its called a "dead heat":

> if the finish takes place on a road, the two riders will race against one another over a distance of 1000 m, from a standing start

https://www.uci.org/docs/default-source/publications/practic... (page 26)

Which sounds awesome to me. If it's a group of 3 or more they are just declared 'equals'.

The rules for ties with photo finish tech (basically all pro races afaik) is kind of weird? All I could find was:

> If, after all technical means available have been exhausted, it is still not possible to separate riders for one of the first three places at the world championships or Olympic Games, these riders shall each be awarded the placing in question. No award shall be made for the following placing, or, where there is a three-way tie, for the following two placings

- Rule 2.3.043 in the UCI Road Race rulebook

Not clear what that means for races like Amstel...

I agree with questioning the sanity ... There are likely all sorts of advantages and disadvantages that might exist at this level of granularity. For example who is on the inside at the start of the first curve of the race? Are the start and finish lines in exactly the same orientation (direction) and (as somebody else mentions) is everybody at the same distance from the starting gun? Speed of sound is finite. Call it a tie!

In cycling you dont race the parcours you race your opponent, so the winner will do just as much work as is needed to beat his opponent.

I think this is the key. The strategy that makes you most likely to beat your personal best, isn't the same as the strategy that makes you most likely to win the race. Races this close don't mean that the athletes were incredibly exactly matched, but that their racing strategies kept them close to each other.

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