Hate the new thousands of second tiebreakers | Golden Skate

Hate the new thousands of second tiebreakers

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
I absolutely hate the new tiebreakers down to thousands of second. In the speed skating this has been especialy evident. In the mens 500 and mens 1500 the gold was decided by going down to thousands, and the final Dutch skater crossed the line thinking they had a gold medal and had it taken away half a minute later. If athletes are so close you cant even seperate them by the immediate main clock, you should award 2 medals. Why is the IOC so adverse to ties they come up with anything to prevent them. Are they going bankrupt, and cant afford the cost of the extra medals. :laugh: Gymnastics now are even worse with this complicated tiebreaking formula.

I was so happy to see Denny Morrison win another medal with his bronze in the 1500, but felt horrible for the last Dutch skater to be bumped out of the gold with the Polish skater by the stupid new thousands tiebreaker. The mens 500 was even worse as the skater who had crossed was originally over a hundredth of second ahead, but was bumped to over a hundredth of a second behind, as this new tiebreaking timer apparently can even overrule the main timing device (and if that is so how can one even be sure it is accurate, another reason it is a bad thing).
 

BravesSkateFan

Medalist
Joined
Aug 7, 2003
I could be wrong, but I don't think it's the IOC, but rather the governing bodies of each sport that determine tie break rules. After all there was a tie in the men's super G and they didn't didn't go down to 1000ths for that. Also in Taekwondo there are always 2 bronze medalists (learned this at the London games!).
 

pangtongfan

Match Penalty
Joined
Jun 16, 2010
Yeah you are probably right. It will be interesting if other sports follow this new speed skating model or not. The funniest thing of all was the mens 500 since if they had just used the hundredths of second clock it would have had Smeekens winning by one hundredth, yet the thousands of second clock overruled that and had Mulder winning by twelve thousands (more than one hundredth the other way) which shows that whichever clock you use there are some possible inaccuracies, and that some of the times someone won by one hundredth or two, there were probably sometimes it was a mistake (including possibly Phelps in the 100 fly in Bejing for instance).

I guess I also just felt Neus deserved to win the mens 1500. His race looked much more impressive than the Polish skater, and I cant believe he didnt pass him time in the end, especialy going past the line in the home straight but seemingly mistiming his finish. I really hope the Dutch win the Mens Team Pursuit now, so he doesnt go home without a gold medal.
 

BravesSkateFan

Medalist
Joined
Aug 7, 2003
I think if they want to use the alternative clock then that's fine, but they should wait to post the results on the board until the time is verified.
 
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