Omega says Cavic touched first

I think these two photos were take .01 or .02 apart: (the bottom one of two obviously) olympics.blogs.nytimes.com/.../ And sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../content.5.html Are Cavic's finger tips on the wall on the NY Times blog photo? I cannot say yes for certain, but I am certain that Phelps is NOT touching the wall in that photo. In the SI phot Phleps hand is depressing the pad while Cavic's is not.

I actually thought it was Mike Bottom who filed the protest on Cavic's behalf. I'm going to be lazy and not look that up right now, though. that was the incorrect rumor started by some US coaches.

Of course track finishes are harder to judge because any part of your body could cross the line first. Same technically goes for swimming, but for all intents and purposes it's your fingers that touch first 99.9% of the time. For some twisted reason the mental image of track using touchpads on a wall to judge finishes made me chuckle. Could you imagine the finish of the 100 meter dash into a brick wall :)

I'm with Ande on this one. The current generation of touch pads require a specific force level to be triggered. If it's the same for everyone (i.e all the pads are operating in identical manner) then the finish requirements are the same. Since the race is decided by times derived from the pads, then it doesn't matter when someone touches the wall, it matters when they trigger the pad. A lot of discussion has occurred around the concept that Cavic's fingers contacted the wall first. Looking at all the photos and slow speed footage, I have absolutely no trouble believing that Cavic's fingers were in contact with the wall first. But to quote Bill Murray: It just doesn't matter!!!! In Olympic Swimming the winner is determined by the swimmer who triggers the electronic timing system first NOT who touches the wall first. Even my 8 yo swimmers know to drive into the touch pad hard. Get over it, so you touched the wall first? Other than you and your coach, who really cares, you didn't finish hard so you came up .01 seconds short. And had ANOTHER chance to prove you were faster and didn't get it done. Let it go, just let it go. In general I agree and I think the gist of the video was even that Cavic and his coach and everyone that saw it agreed that the final result was the legal one, even if they do think Cavic "touched" first. That said, you can't blame fans on both sides for wanted to figure out who "really" won, especially with such focus on the number of golds Phelps won, etc. If Cavic continues to be defeated by Phelps, then the fans will get their answer, despite what the agreed "legal" result is.

I don't know. It always looked fairly clear to me that Phelps hit the wall first. Here's the famous shot... sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../content.5.html And here's the close up of Cavic's hands... sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../content.6.html Regardless, you've gotta strike the pad hard enough to stop the clock.

from the race club boards Hi Kirk, Never new I was an official anything. Yes I can point out Serbia on a map. I think the question is how credible is this person who is talking to millions possibly billions of viewers and calls me by name and then says i am an official of Serbia.....when I am wearing "Croatia" in big red letters on my back? This is the type of brainless media that the world is listening to. It is sad how I know Rowdy Gains personally and he knows of the many athletes I have and am coaching. He never mentions me except in an attempt at being funny at my and my families expense. I am sorry for him. When i talked to Mark (Schubert) after it was over and the video was reviewed he said "I would have done the same thing". ....as a matter of fact he did. He actually went in and looked at the Video before the Serbians got there. He also had questions about the finish. I believe that he too only wanted fairness to play-out. The difference is in order to see the video they made the Serbians file a protest and pay $100US in cash. Then they officially reviewed it and officially said that they saw Phelps touch first on the video. They did not let the Serbians see the video till this morning (a day later). How easy would it have been to just show the head of the Serbian delegation the video as they did the US official? A precedent was set at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka Japan. There were over 30 protested finishes that went to video review. This including one by the US that ended up in court and US won an appeal using the video. Did any of the informed media mention this? No they said that the timing system never failed, this is not true It is amazing the lies the media gets away with. I never told Mike he won, I hugged him and told him he swam a great race and that i was very proud of him! I never said anything to Michael except good luck when I saw him before the race. We were forced to file a protest. Nobody wanted to. As a matter of fact it was only as a result of the reaction of the crowd and the swimmers on the deck and stands as they looked at the over water video and saw what appeared to be Cavic's fingertips on the wall before Michael came around for his touch, that convinced us to go and do a check. Bob Bowmen thanked me for having it reviewed. He knew it was better for Michael to have it cleared, as the conspiracy theorist were already spinning their tales. Mike Cavic is happy to tears with his medal and I am proud to have coach him to such a great swim. So if you want Kirk you can forward this around or not, I am ready to come home, where ever that is, Take care, Mike Fight media mediocrity and forward this to your world. --- On Sat, 8/16/08, kirk wrote: Mike, How does it feel to be described as a Serbian official? Do you even know where Serbia is located? At least you finally got your name mentioned during the Olympic swimming events. Anyway, congratulations on being named the Michigan coach. It is definitely an opportunity you earned. So my one peice of advice - don't blow it. Looking forward to talking with you when you get back.

So you guys are basically saying: - The Omega representative is making the whole thing up to make Omega look bad ???? - Even if he touched the wall first, he did not deserve to win because he was gliding into the wall and had a poor finish and he is not American and his name is not Phelps The reason for the timing system requiring 3 pounds is so that water splash will not cause the timing system to go off. Obviously he lost the race -- but I think his fingertips were at the wall first -- In the SI picture where they claim he did not touch wall - it seems that his right hand fingertips are actually at the wall. They lost the protest, because the rules are clear - the timing system determines the winner - but if they were using track rules of a photo finish, we may have a different answer

So how does would using photographic evidence work? Cavic would get the Gold but his official time would be .01 slower than Phelps? Add .01 to Phelps' time and apply a tie-break? Subtract .02 from Cavic's time? Add .02 to Phelps' time? What a can of worms. Using track is an apples/oranges argument. Track finish rules are any part of the head or torso crossing OVER the finish line thru the air in any manner. That would not work for swimming. Swimming has specific finish rules for each stroke and because of this requires a defined, finite barrier. Ain't nobody swimming thru the wall. Until some sort of laser timing system is created, touchpads are the best system we have.

I've never seen a single still photo of video where Cavic appears to touch first. Show me that and then we can start discussing sensitivity of the touchpad. I think the NY Times photo (not the SI photo) shows Cavic touched the wall first. As I said, I think that photo was taken .01 or .02 before the SI photo.

What is the point of this argument??? The point is that "whoever touches the wall first should win" - not whoever triggers some touchpad mechanism. Isn't that the point of racing ? You against me - first one to the wall wins.