William Saletan's comments about the Omega timing and Michael Phelps' 100 M butterfly seem to miss the real issue. The real issue is not whether Phelps or Cavic touched first (or depressed the pad with enough force first). In my mind (at least) the real issue is that any difference of one one hundredth of a second is not a discernable difference.

They should both have been gold medal winners.

Trying to measure the difference in hundredths of seconds introduces the risk of measurement errors making the difference between otherwise identical performances.

Another example from the Olympics where a similar thing happened was Nastia Liukin winning the silver and He Kexin winning the gold despite identical scores.

Again they were both gold medal performances that yielded the same score. Why was there even a tiebreaker so obscure that the gymnastics teams weren't even aware of it?

What drives this need to declare a winner or loser, even if the winner or loser is determined by what is essentially random chance?

Whether it's the distribution or scores or random measurement error, we're getting into distinctions without a meaningful difference. Give them both golds!

"What drives the need to declare a winner or loser?" You can't seriously be asking that question. That is one of the integral aspects of sports competitions.

While 0.01 seconds is not much, it's more than zero. Deciding where to stop counting is a slippery slope. Where do you draw the line? 0.01 of a second? 0.1 seconds? 2 seconds?

I don't want the Olympics to turn into an event where everyone gets a "participant" gold medal.

dkuva:

They should both have been gold medal winners.

Trying to measure the difference in hundredths of seconds introduces the risk of measurement errors making the difference between otherwise identical performances.

Swimming races were at one time measured to the thousandth of a second -- that changed after the 1972 Olympics when 0.002 seconds separated gold and silver in the men's 400 individual medley. Apparently FINA decided that 0.01 second is, in fact, a discernable differnence. It's a difference of at least a centimeter or two.

The clocks for swimming actually still measure to the thousandth of a second to ensure accuracy. They just don't put up all the digits on the scoreboard, but they are available for review. And I agree with ketone, .01 seconds is the difference of a centimeter.

dkuva: this is not gymnastics, where judges post scores based on what they feel happened, but where an impartial clock stops when a swimmer touches a wall. The clock has been tested for decades and has been shown to be incredibly accurate. If we want to throw out the hundredth of a second, then all times sports such as swimming and track and field would become absolutely boring. The thrill is in the closeness of the race and who punches out that last little bit of inhumane energy to capture the gold!

In case you've forgotten (or maybe just not aware) the timing system has determined real ties. It's actually not uncommon. This year, Jason Lezak won a bronze medal in a tie. In 2000, Gary Hall Jr and Anthony Ervin shared a gold medal in a dead heat that came down to .01 of a second. But unfortunately losing by .01 of a second happens a lot as well. Dara Torres lost by that margin, but no matter how much we'd love to see her win her first individual gold at age 41, it would not be fair to the swimmer who really did beat her.