The Clock

Racers and spectators alike were gasping when Norway’s Lasse Kjus posted the same exact time as Austria’s Hermann Maier in Tuesday’s men’s super-G. There weren’t as many spectators to witness the second tie, but the racers still gasped in Thursday’s downhill training when Austrians Hans Knauss and Stefan Eberharter posted the same numbers yet again.

How could skiers reaching speeds as high as 75 mph on a course that’s 1.5 miles long manage to tie? It’s a reflection of how competitive today’s field of skiers is and how space-age technology is redefining ski racing.

"There are a lot of variables that creep into the evaluation of excellence." — Ted Savage, TAG Heuer Engineer

At the 1999 World Alpine Ski Championships at Vail, timing is what ski racing is all about. A ski race is pretty simple; the fastest one down the hill wins. But the difference between winning and losing can be about 10 inches. That's how close the distance can be between ski racers traveling at 60 miles per hour crossing the finish line within one-hundredth of a second of each other.

Keeping track of time is a full-time job for a crew of about 50 technicians working at two venues at Vail and Beaver Creek during the two-week Worlds which end Feb. 14. Using miles of cables, dozens of high tech infra-red photocells and a wall of computers, officials from Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer can split the hairs that determine the winners and the losers. And, now this year—the ties.

"We could take it down to the thousandths of a second," said Ted Savage, an engineer with TAG Heuer, the official timekeeper at the World Championships. "But FIS [International Ski Federation] decided to keep the differences to one-hundredth of a second. The top athletes are so close, we could go lower. But the conditions aren’t fair. There are a lot of variables that creep into the evaluation of excellence.

Timing has come a long way in 10 years, said Jean Campiche, TAG Heuer’s electronics timing manager. New, high-speed computers and specialized photo cells that beam a 2 mm-wide band of light across the race course allow skiers to be timed more accurately than ever.

"The photo cell is shot at knee level. Snowflakes or a ski pole won’t trigger the timing device. It is a very accurate system," said Campiche, who travels the globe working with TAG Heuer on skiing’s World Cup, motor racing’s Formula One and boat racing. "It is complicated and very complex."

Any ski race begins in the start house. Racers have a 10-second window to get out of there to meet the strict start order, or risk being disqualified. Once a skier trips the trigger at the start house, the race is on. Times are beamed down to the finish area, where they are displayed as soon as the racer crosses the line. A computer tracks the placement.

But there’s more to it than just the final official result. Today’s technology provides several interval times and speed traps along the course, information that’s key to deciding which wax a racer will use or which ski is best for the conditions.

Luc Alphand

"We use the timing information a lot on the training run. The more time splits we have, the more information we have to decide about things," said French skiing legend Luc Alphand, overall winner of the 1997 World Cup title. "This information is very important, especially during the speed events."

With the splits, racers and coaches can determine where a skier made up or lost time, and then make moves to correct it in time for race day, Alphand said, now working as a TAG Heuer consultant.

Both Vail and Beaver Creek downhill courses feature five interval points and two speed traps. Crews arrived several weeks in advance to begin laying the cables and setting up the apparatus in time for the races. Campiche said TAG Heuer spends more than $20 million a year on its timing division.

"We spend a lot of money in development of material. It’s never possible to stop because the technology is always evolving and we must have the best technology for these ski racers," Campiche said.

— Andrew Hood, Mountain Zone Correspondent