Apparently there was some whispering at the Olympics last week when an Omega-sponsored swimmer from Zimbabwe, heretofore unknown, broke a world record by an astonishing margin. An almost unbelievable margin, in fact.
Then Michael Phelps, another Omega-sponsored athlete, was ruled the winner of the 100-meter butterfly by Omega in a paper-thin finish, but Omega subsequently refused to release underwater photo-finish images from that one event.
Unlike FIS ski racing and FEI equestrian sports, FINA has no timing standards or timing equipment homologation specs. Furthermore, the ethical quandary posed by an official timer sponsoring the athletes it measures is being called into question in a big way.
I recommend any Timing Guys who operate in a sponsored environment read this article and take heed:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21lon...tml?_r=1&oref=slogin
Some excerpts:
"Omega is not only the official timekeeper of the Beijing Games. It is also one of Phelps’s corporate sponsors, an arrangement that appears to be a conflict of interest."
"Whether it has anything to hide or not, Omega is needlessly leaving its own reputation — and Phelps’s — vulnerable to suspicion, sports ethicists and historians said."
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