Olympics move with times and technological advances

BEFORE there was a Twitter, camera, or even a telegraph, the results of the Olympics were transmitted via carrier pigeon.

Our technology has come a long way since the ancient Greek games. Over the last few decades, advances have brought the Olympics to the living room and smartphone, redesigned a torch that can travel from the depths of the Great Barrier Reef to the peak of Mt Everest, and unveiled unparalleled timing accuracy that can measure down to a millionth of a second.

The Berlin games in 1936 was the first Olympics shown on television, but the broadcast was available only on a closed circuit to several viewing halls within the city.

The 1948 London Olympics marked the establishment of a broadcast rights fee. While the BBC agreed to pay 1,000 guineas, the payment was rejected by the Organising Committees for the Olympic Games over concerns about the network’s finances. The BBC’s live coverage totalled about 64 hours and was limited to a 50-mile radius in London, reaching about 500,000 viewers.

In 1960, CBS broadcast the first US telecast of the Olympics. When officials were unsure whether a skier missed a gate during the Squaw Valley Winter Games, they asked CBS to review its tape, leading to the creation of instant replay.

Fast forward to 2012, and TV networks worldwide broadcast more than 61,000 hours to 4.8bn people in 200 countries and territories. It was also the first Olympics to introduce live 3D coverage, totalling more than 230 hours. Olympic Broadcasting Services is expected to produce 5,600 hours of coverage, compared with 5,000 for the 2008 Beijing Games.

Live-streaming’s Olympic history stems back to 2000. Except during the Sydney Games, NBCOlympics.com didn’t have live video, instead transmitting a series of still images from the network’s video feed.

By the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, IOC gave a Swiss network, Télévision Suisse Romande, the rights to stream live video to a closed network, reaching up to 2,000 DSL subscribers simultaneously.

By the time Athens rolled around in 2004, European networks started showing live streams. For the 2008 Beijing Olympics, NBC live-streamed most events with delayed coverage for athletics, gymnastics, and swimming — the summer Games’ most popular events.

But NBC decided to pull back the number of streams during the 2010 Vancouver Games, offering only live coverage of curling and ice hockey.

NBC’s live-streaming app covered all events for the 2012 Games, but could be viewed only by cable and satellite TV subscribers. For the first time, IOC broadcast the events live and on-demand via its YouTube channel, viewable in 64 territories in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

The Olympic torch, a tradition that harks back to ancient Greek games, is relayed for months before arriving at the host city for the opening ceremony, where it stays lit until the closing ceremony. In modern Olympics, the flame is lit directly by the sun after its rays are concentrated by a parabolic mirror. Over the years, organisers have been using different fuel sources to keep the torch lit while relaying it to challenging environments.

Beginning with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the torches used solid fuels, such as magnesium, naphthalene, and even gunpowder.

In 1956, the torch was kept lit with magnesium and aluminum, a combination that created a brilliant flame but also burned the torchbearers.

From 1972 onward, gas fuels and liquid were used. A pressurised fuel tank held butane, propane, or propylene, but emissions became an issue.

At the turn of the millennium, the torch started going to exotic and faraway locales, such as the Great Barrier Reef and Mt Everest. To handle the challenge, scientists developed a lightweight perforated aluminum that conducts less heat. The torch’s 2012 design includes 8,000 holes to represent the 8,000 torchbearers and 8,000 miles they travelled. The London organisers failed to find a carbon-friendly fuel solution, instead falling back on butane and propane.

Omega has been the official timekeeper of the Olympics for the past 80 years. Back in 1932, timekeepers used stopwatches that measured to the 10th of a second.

Omega unveiled the world’s first independent, portable, and water-resistant photoelectric cell used in London in 1948. For the 1952 Helsinki Games, Omega used electronic timing with the Omega Time Recorder.

Ahead of the 1964 Tokyo Games, the watchmaker developed the Omegascope in 1961, which showed each competitor’s time on a TV screen. In 1962, Omega unveiled its contact pads used for timing swimming competitions.

By the 2008 Beijing Olympics, high-speed video cameras, capable of shooting 1,000 frames per second, were used in addition to the electronic timing system to help break ties.

In the 2010 Vancouver Games, the start pistol was replaced with an electronic starting gun.

At London, cameras could shoot 2,000 frames per second. Omega’s Quantum Timer is now able to provide accurate time readings down to the microsecond, or about one-millionth of a second, 100,000 times more accurate than Omega’s technology in 1932.