Technology takes a leap forward

In sports as varied as cricket, athletics and football, technology is an integral part of the modern-day player and viewer experience. Today’s sophisticated systems can accurately track the flight of balls, scan 10,000 digital images a second to decide who wins in a photo finish, and tell officials if a player is offside or not. And when it comes to timekeeping at the modern-day Olympic Games, up to 450 tonnes of equipment and an extensive team of experts in the field are needed to provide times that are accurate to a millionth of a second.

The development towards today’s ultra-sophisticated devices and software gathered pace in the 1960s. Though computers were present at the Olympic Winter Games 1960 in Lake Tahoe, the technology rolled out in Innsbruck four years later was considerably more complex and faster. With events taking place at venues as far as 30 kilometres from the centre of Innsbruck, this increased complexity was necessary.  

Twelve information feeding points were set up at each venue, with results wired to a processing centre at the University of Innsbruck as part of a system known as “teleprocessing”. Changes were also visible on the TV screens of viewers around the world, as superimposed timers brought the concept of real time to televised sports such as track and field. Further developments in timing and scoring technologies were seen at the Olympic Summer Games in Tokyo later in the year, when computers were used to record statistics.