Sochi 2014: Breaking records in sync

As the athletes of the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games are pitted in fierce competition with each other and against the ticking clock, two European women raced each other to a perfect tie in women’s downhill skiing. On Feb. 12, 2014, at the Rosa Khutor Alpine Center, Tina Maze of Slovenia and Dominique Gisin of Switzerland both finished with a record time of 1 minute, 41.57 , in addition to surpassing the previous world record. This historical feat has never been achieved before; it is the first time a double gold will be awarded for the an Alpine Olympic tie.

If you wonder how such a perfect time resulted from the skiers, here it is: the rule for the Olympic timing. According to Daniel Baumat, vice president of Swiss Timing, the members in the Olympic timing booth are to only report the times only up to the rounded hundredth. This regulation is in place to protect the integrity guaranteed by the number, as downhill is an outdoor winter sport and the slightest fraction of a second could be affected by many factors. Because of this rounding rule, the times of the female athletes came to an identical number. No one, including the F.I.S. – International Ski Federation – will ever know who was faster in the ten thousandth of a second; even Baumat himself chose not to look at the number. Despite this, the fact remains that a double gold was given to two outstanding women and a world record was doubly broken in sync for the very first time in Sochi 2014.

For more information on the event, read here:

http://espn.go.com/olympics/winter/2014/alpine/story/_/id/10442272/2014-sochi-olympics-dominique-gisin-tina-maze-tie-skiing-gold