![]() For many years this method has been standard practice throughout the Australian Institute of Sport Network, one of the world’s leading sport science organizations.ĭespite the popularity of dual beam gates and their improved reliability of measurement, several manufacturers, including Fusion Sport, chose to produce single beam gates with microprocessor technology and achieve in software the elimination of false objects such as hands and feet. The theory behind this is that if two beams have to be broken concurrently, an object such as the hand cannot trigger the gate, as it will only break one of the beams. Several manufacturers of simple timing systems have attempted to improve reliability by adding extra beams (usually dual or triple beam). For example, the start gate may be triggered by a hand instead of the body, therefore producing a significantly worse result. Single beam systems will be triggered by the first event at both start and split/stop gates, and hence the source of the unreliability. Dual and triple beam systems The Main Cause of Error: False SignalsĪs an athlete passes through a photo-beam, a number of ‘breaks’ can occur, corresponding to leading/trialing hands or feet, and the torso.Single beam systems with additional processing (such as SMARTSPEED).There are currently 3 main types of sports timing light on the global market Despite the typical claims of “accurate to 1/100 th of a second”, this is actually a technical spec which does not hold true in the real world. At present a range of these systems exist, either commercially or in-house developed. However, due to a good balance of accuracy and practicality, ‘timing lights’ or ‘timing gates’ are a commonly used field testing tool for the measurement of running performance in athletic development and research. There are a number of ways to accurately measure speed such as camera systems, inertial sensors, laser proximity devices, and the good old stopwatch. Whether you are a coach wanting accurate feedback for your athletes, or a researcher looking at improvements through interventions, reliability is a must. With inaccuracy like this, an athlete may improve by 5%, but your timing method could tell them they have become slower. Hand timing results in errors of up to 10%, while even many timing gate systems can suffer errors of 5-7% with hand breaks and false starts. ![]() If your timing is not reliable, there is no way to objectively identify improvements in your athletes. The question is, can your measurement tools/methods accurately track this change in performance and lead you to the right conclusions? Unfortunately, the answer is often no. An athlete can train for a whole season to improve 0.1 of a second. Accuracy and reliability of timing are critical.
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