Technological advances
The Olympic Games have always fostered progress and innovation and the VIII Olympic Winter Games were no exception, with several new developments taking place.
The Games were broadcast live on television across the United States, with CBS recording every event and providing 31 hours of coverage in black and white. The US broadcaster paid the Organising Committee USD 50,000 for the TV rights, a figure dwarfed by the USD 963 million that NBC invested in broadcasting and streaming coverage of the Olympic Winter Games PyeongChang 2018.
The VIII Olympic Winter Games saw several technological innovations, one of which came about with CBS’s help. Uncertain as to whether a skier had missed a gate in the men’s slalom event, officials consulted with the broadcaster’s technicians and reviewed a tape of the race to determine what happened. And so the instant replay was born, with the slow-motion replay soon following. Both have now become key features of sports broadcasting.
The 1960 Olympic Winter Games also witnessed developments in timekeeping, with Longines unveiling the Chronocinégines. Comprising a 16mm camera attached to a quartz clock, the instrument was accurate to the nearest one-hundredth of a second. It provided a film strip featuring a set of frames that allowed judges to follow the motion of athletes approaching and crossing the finish line, creating the now famous photo finish.
Computers were also used to calculate times and print out event standings faster than ever before. Demonstrated two years earlier at the Brussels World’s Fair, the IBM RAMAC 306 delivered complete and accurate results within minutes of events ending rather than hours, as was previously the case. It was especially useful in the ski jumping events, which required extensive calculations of distance and style points to determine athlete placings. Computers would play an increasingly important role at later Games. At the Olympic Winter Games Innsbruck 1964, for example, online terminals were used to collect results, which were printed out at each venue.
The development of technology did occasionally cause problems at the 1960 Olympic Winter Games, however. The speed skating judges struggled initially to operate the advanced electronic timing systems and scoreboards provided by Longines. They got around the problem by using stopwatches to time training runs.
The 1960 Olympic Winter Games also saw innovations in sports equipment. French skier Jean Vuarnet dispensed with traditional wooden skis to win the men’s downhill gold medal on a ground-breaking riveted aluminium pair. Pioneering work on metal skis continued through the 1960s, ensuring their acceptance among the world’s leading racers and revolutionising the sport.
For their part, the skaters and ice hockey players competing at the 1960 Olympic Winter Games benefitted from the ice resurfacing machines used to prepare the rinks. These pioneering devices created a perfect, slick surface for athletes to compete on and remain the benchmark for today’s ice resurfacing machines.