TimingGuys members working the 2015 World Alpine Ski Championships

What do you mean exactly?
As far as I could see in a recent slalom in my region, that company did not seem in need of expertise from outside.
They provided timing, data processing, TV and results. Then the TD signed.
Does it work differently in Vail?

Yes. They follow the FIS rules there. The Chief of Timing and Calculations oversees the timing provider and then submits the forms to the TD for signature.

The wording on the reply suggests that maybe the rest of the world does not follow FIS rules.
Well..... for some reason, everyday tenths of ski and snowboard races take place, and I am sure that everybody follows strictly FIS rules.
Simply, the chief timekeeper and chief of timing and calculations are provided by the company taking care of the timing. Who can afford one more person whose task is taking the reports from the printer to the TD for the signatures?

That was not the intent.

In North America high level races have independent Chief of T&C that either volunteers or is paid by the organizer. Lower level events do indeed frequently have the timing staff also produce the documents and have the TD the sign them.

It is generally considered to be a honor to be appointed to oversee the timing and calculation and several people vie for this position on an annual basis.

The key element is fairness. It has been my observation that having independent Chief of T&C provides that extra security for the athletes, coaches, and organizers. Very often the TD is really a safety and piste person and only has basic knowledge of sync procedures,hand timing , EET timing calculations, penalty calculations, etc. The TD handles the course and the Chief of T&C handles the inside work with the Race Administrator.

That sounds much better.

I agree that everything is done to improve fairness is always welcome. But for sure it comes at a cost.
My opinion is that today's FIS rules are good enough to insure some of fairness, given some constraints. Probably, they are even between the best available in sport:
-Timer&Cell Homologations
-Three levels of security (main timer, backup timer, hand timing)
-Detailed reports and post-race FIS analysis.

About the constraints, I feel that the FIS Timing rules show some weakness on some technical matters, that are strictly related to fairness:
a) Timing devices are not required to be verified on a yearly or 2-year basis. This would mean more costs, but at least for Level 0 competitions, and maybe COC should in my humble opinion be mandatory.
There are 25 y.o. devices around... who can trust them, even if they are homologated, if they are not checked periodically?
b) Almost nothing has been done to improve, since the seventies, the way to decide the winner. Still today, we see ties (maybe not many, but some interesting ones, like in Sochi) and FIS still is not able give an answer to the question “who was faster”.
c) The wireless technology is still seen as something “not enough good”, even if it is used to drive planes, satellites costing billions, and so on. This sounds odd, or even incredible.
d) Fibre optic links seem to be another taboo, with clubs fighting to find resources to put copper cables, when today all mountain lifts have dozens of available optical fibers free and thus are no longer helping clubs to bury expensive copper cables which they don't use anymore.

So.... yes, I am sure that an additional person, like they did in Vail, may somehow help fairness. But I think that much has to be done to take advantage of the new technologies. That would be a leap ahead.

Swiss Timing was official timing at the 2015 World Alpine Championships, branded as Longines.

As you may have read in another thread on this forum, Swiss Timing is currently under indictment for fraud and money laundering in connection with a similar deal struck with the Commonwealth Games in Delhi, India in 2010.

Provisional Arrest of 3 Swiss Timing Officials

Shortly after a warrant for the arrest of Swiss Timing's General Manager, Christophe Berthaud, was issued in connection with Swiss Timing's alleged international crimes, Berthaud resigned from Swiss Timing. Shortly thereafter, he turned up with a new job as an executive with BWIN.COM, Europe's largest online sports betting site.

Since this very suspicious turn of events, some under-the-radar poking around behind the scenes has been going on by parties who do not wish to publicize their investigation. There are those who suspect Swiss Timing secretly is one of the owners of BWIN.COM, via a series of shell corporations. If this is true, then obviously having the OWNERS of Europe's LARGEST ONLINE SPORTS BETTING SITE providing OFFICIAL TIMING & RESULTS to any sporting event where BWIN.COM customers can bet on the results is a blatant conflict of interest.

If FIS had any integrity at all, it would recuse Swiss Timing from timekeeping until the suspicious relationship between Swiss Timing and BWIN.COM is clarified. Since FIS does not have the requisite integrity, an independent timing & calculations official verifying Swiss Timing's results is obviously an extremely important thing to have at ski races where Swiss Timing is providing timing & results.

Well, for sure I think that FIS could have done more on some technical aspects.
But after reading the previous reply, I felt surprised and disappointed.

Everyone may have his very personal idea about the written allegations (“If FIS had any integrity at all” “Since FIS does not have the requisite integrity”), but some facts should be always considered:
-FIS is between the first federations that did set up an objective and not subjective criteria for ranking athletes (FIS points and more recently WCSL). This dates from the seventies;
-FIS is between the first if not the very first international federation that introduced a set of tight, binding timing rules, homologations, and all what we know, to make sure that results are consistent, correct and fair;
-All FIS races and in any case all world cups (thus not only World Championships) have a third party, independent verification of the results with the mandatory manual timekeeping;
-On all races which go on TV, times can be easily checked against errors and/or manipulations. And TV sync generators feature Hi-Q reference clocks, far better than those available for sports timing.

There are probably still wide margins for improvement, but frankly speaking, I can't see much better situations around, even in sports where timekeeping is critical like in ski racing.

Actually the FIS, as well as some national federations and WCh organizers tried different solutions other than the aforementioned companies. But the results were so bad that the entire world of ski was disgusted and refused to go on that way. “Bad” is a kind word. It was a real catastrophe, that ended with the infamous débacle of the 2011 championships with the press, the teams and the spectators getting crazy.
And, look, I am not at all interested in the struggles between timing companies. It is their business.
I am a simple sport lover. And what I saw, had a deep negative impact on our sport.
Do you remember? For the first time after so many years, in 2011 a new company showed up in ski racing. And that was a BIG name, Hublot, not just “a village brand”. They allegedly signed a multi year contract. That was good news. But unfortunately, that was their first and last. Soon after the 2011 worlds, they changed their mind and went to Formula 1. To me, it means that the entire world of ski lost a lot. Athletes lost. Teams lost. Spectators lost.
Was it only due to the issues of the timekeeping? Probably not. But the press releases that were sent out left not much to imagination.
So what sould the FIS do? Try again like in the past? Believe me, it would be exactly like a russian roulette.
I personally find in your words a deep contempt based on inferences and on media reports of some investigations that are yet to be finished and -as reported by the press you linked- seems more related to the wrongdoing of some individuals.
Your reply seems more driven by some anger maybe because in your country you (or your company) were not appointed for the timekeeping of Vail.

Hublot's multiple screwups at the 2011 World Alpine Chmps in Garmisch were indeed a very public embarrassment to ski racing. However, the undisputed heavyweight champion of embarrassing global headline-grabbing timing failures across multiple international sports is Swiss Timing (branded as Omega / Longines / Tissot / Swatch). Additionally, Swiss Timing's technical failures and errors often carry the additional slime of implicit or explicit conflict-of-interest and corruption. For example:

**Swimming, Olympics 2008, mens 100m butterfly. Swiss Timing's error gives gold medal to Michael Phelps despite Milorad Cavic apparently finishing first. The New York Times points out that Swiss Timing (branded in this case as Omega) is also Phelps' personal sponsor and stands to gain enormous PR benefit by Phelps' success.

**Athletics, Quatar Grand Prix 2006. American sprinter Justin Gatlin's World Record in the 100m dash is revoked by the IAATF after an IAATF investigation reveals Gatlin's record was calculated in error by Swiss Timing (branded in this case as Tissot).

**Hanhnenkamm slalom, Kitzbuhel, 2013. Swiss Timing (branded in this case as Longines) completely misses the 2nd place skier's time, resulting in erroneous podium results for both the Hahnenkamm slalom and the Hahnenkamm Trophy (Classic Kombined). The error is later pointed out by timing officials and subsequently corrected. Ironically, this Swiss Timing disaster immediately followed 6 years of error-free timing at Kitzbuhel by competitor Rolex (2007-2012), which was forced out in 2013 by FIS decree.

Your ad hominem attacks on me (complete with psychoanalysis, thank you!) do not change the fact that Swiss Timing is the only international sports timing company being pursued by international law enforcement on fraud and corruption charges (Commonwealth Games, India, 2010).

Your trolling on behalf of Swiss Timing and your personal attacks lead me to ask you, Aaron: Do you, or anyone in your family or immediate circle, work (or formerly worked) for Swiss Timing, the Swatch Group, or any of their associated brands?