No less than three women finished their thousandths in the same final time in the 400 meter heats at the World Indoor Championships. Finland’s leading statistician was also confused.
In the heats of the women’s 400 meters at the WC Indoor Games in Glasgow, a truly confusing, even unique in the history of athletics, situation was experienced in heat number three: Ireland’s Sharlene Mawdsleyof France Amandine Brossier and Norway Henriette Jäger ran for thousandths of the same time, 52,229. Everyone went straight ahead. The time comparison is not extended beyond this, i.e. to ten-thousandths of a second.
The founder and partner of even the world’s most respected athletics data service, Tilastopaja Juhani Jalava admits to Urheilu that even he can’t find anything similar in his memory boxes.
– If you suddenly have to find an example, then so be it Victory for Hellsten bronze medal at the Melbourne Olympics.
At that time, Hellsten shared the 400m bronze medal with the Soviet Union Ardalion Ignatyev with a time of 47.0, which would correspond to approximately time of 47.15 with electric timing. Electronic timekeeping was introduced at the level of competition at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968.
– The fully established practice of electronic timing has been around since the turn of the 1970s-80s, but I don’t remember anything like this, even though I have followed athletics with great piety since the 60s, said Jalava, whose son Mirko Jalava does data service work for the International Athletics Federation, also for the Glasgow Games.
Three same results in Joensuu
In the running sports, the rare performance experienced on Friday means a draw, but in the field sports, in the event of a tie, the athlete’s next best result will decide. The list of results is scrolled down until the difference is found.
– It can also happen there that there are three levels and all the other jumps or throws of each of them are overstepped, Juhani Jalava is playing with his thoughts.
Joensuu Elite Games in the women’s triple jump 2023 and Kristiina Mäkelä, Jessica Kähärä that the Pole Adrianna Laskowska all very rarely ended up with a result of 13.78, so the difference between the jumpers was made with the next best protocol results.
Thousandths are more routinely used in certain speed sports, such as alpine skiing, sledding or speed skating, than in athletics. For example, at the 2014 Sochi Olympic Games, the men’s 1500m speed skating was won by a Pole Zbigniew Brodkaof which Holland Koen Verweij three thousandths left, about four centimeters on the way.
At the speeds of the runners who ended up in a tie, one thousandth would have meant about 0.75 cents on the way.