I had always thought that touch pads were the most reliable timing equipment. I had heard of isolated incidents of probable errors,but expected they were very rare. At the SPMS SCY meet last weekend the time for my 50 BR didn't register. I didn't notice since I thought the 5th place time was the lane 5 time and so I thought I knew my time (lane 5 time on this scoreboard was shown at the top, not following lane 4,hence my confusion.) When the results were posted on SwimPhone I was listed as NS.After some panic I went to the officials,they determined that I had swum and used the hand times as my official time. This was the event where the gasket in my goggle slipped,so I thought I may have missed the pad on the touch,but I just viewed the video from the meet and I clearly touch with my hands underwater in the middle of the pad. Can any expert out there speculate as to what went wrong and how reliable are touch pads really?
I would speculate it was a problem with the connection between the pad and the timing system rather than with the actual pad. I know I've been at plenty of meets where touch pads need to be swapped out, so they certainly aren't foolproof.
I would speculate it was a problem with the connection between the pad and the timing system rather than with the actual pad. I know I've been at plenty of meets where touch pads need to be swapped out, so they certainly aren't foolproof.
