Published: February 26, 2010
Fractions of a Second: An Olympic Musical
Alpine skiing
The women’s downhill course was extremely tiring, and, because it was more challenging than the men’s course, it ended up separating the skiers by much larger margins. This pattern appears in the two speed events: the downhill and the super-G.
Skeleton, Bobsled and Luge
In percentage terms, the men’s skeleton had one of the tightest finishes in Vancouver, with only .07 of a second separating the top two finishers across a three-and-a-half-minute run. But the difficult track produced speeds higher than expected, and many sliding events had relatively large gaps between gold and silver.
Speedskating
The individual silver medalist who came closest to gold was Annette Gerritsen of the Netherlands, in the women’s 1,000-meter speedskating race. She lost by .02 of a second, about the time it takes a hummingbird to flap its wings.
Short-Track Speedskating
Along with luge, short-track events are the only ones measured in milliseconds, but that precision was not necessary in Vancouver — most of the races were won by more than a quarter-second. (In short-track events, skaters compete against one another, rather than the clock; skaters in the final are shown below.)