
Thoughts on Fairness in Rowing - Alex3917
https://www.rowinginmotion.com/thoughts-fairness-rowing/
======
jrudolph
Wow, didn't expect one of my rowing related articles to ever appear on HN.
Thanks for posting, hope you found it interesting.

Also interesting if you like this: "Why There Are So Many Ties in Swimming",
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12282326](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12282326)

~~~
tzs
Interesting article. BTW, I think you have a typo: "The Germans had one their
heat over GB, who had to go through the repechage". I think you meant "won"
there, not "one".

~~~
jrudolph
Thanks, fixed!

------
jly
The point in which a rower is at in the stroke when they cross the finish line
can have a hugely outsized influence on the result. During the catch, the boat
momentarily slows down while the blades enter the water, and then it surges
forward during the drive. This is exaggerated even more than it is in swimming
and makes a huge difference in these kind of close finishes. Nothing to do
with fairness, but in a close race there is a lot of luck as to where you are
in the stroke when you finish.

I watched this race live and it was frustrating to not know the outcome - I
thought Damir had won. I would have liked to see them receive a tie. Rowing
governing body should adjust this to match swimming where they measure down to
1/100th of finish time and use that as the only determinant rather than
examining the much more precise photo finish. So many other things are not as
precise over a 2000m course in variable water conditions - this isn't a 100m
dash that's over in 10 seconds.

~~~
notahacker
The big issue with a photo finish on this for me is _I bet the starts weren 't
accurate to 2cm_. I'd also wonder if the camera was fixed to avoid that margin
of parallax error, which is much easier on a small running track than a wide
expanse of water.

Still, that photo-finish is a paragon of fairness and clarity compared with
the Olympic marathon swimming, in which after swimming in the sea for 10k, it
all came down to who could "strongly" touch one of a few small pads on a beam
suspended above their heads on a raft floating on the choppy seas: in a finish
where ability to obstruct an opponent without being penalised for it could
count for as much as swimming speed and timing on touching the pad.

Remarkably the men's Olympic race produced (i) a gold medal photo-finish after
nearly two hours that was so close that it took 15 minutes to figure out
they'd initially named the wrong man as the winner and (ii) 2.2 seconds behind
them, a three way photofinish for bronze (the third person to post that time
was subsequently for disqualified for what he described as fighting off
somebody that was holding onto his leg in the final sprint...)

The women's race saw the a silver medal photo-finish before one of the
swimmers was disqualified for reaching over the top of her opponent to touch
the pad first in a manner which looked a little bit too much like dunking

So if losing a rowing sprint by a couple of centimetres sounds tough, spare a
thought for the person that is two centimetres away from touching a _moving_
finish line whilst their competitor elbows them, after swimming for two hours
to get there

~~~
Someone
_" gold medal photo-finish after nearly two hours that was so close that it
took 15 minutes to figure out they'd initially named the wrong man as the
winner"_

For me, that was more a matter of the jury figuring out what the rules are.
The GPS tracker of swimmer A passed the finish line .7 seconds before B did,
but swimmer B hit the board half a second or so before A did. Both differences
are easy to spot, even without the benefit of slow-motion
([https://youtu.be/iQY6EoYVRxs](https://youtu.be/iQY6EoYVRxs)). So, if you
know what determines the winner, it should be easy to figure out who won.

This race probably has taught them not to connect the GPS measurements
directly to numbers shown on screen to a worldwide audience.

------
ianferrel
My takeaway on this is that any specification of a physical thing that doesn't
explicitly specify tolerances is not really specified as much as it is
idealized.

~~~
curiousgal
Exactly! Plus, if you focus so much on the finishing line in an iota-scale and
disregard the plethora of other factors that could've granted that difference,
you're just being silly.

------
ourmandave
I wonder if this is the kind of thing Ben-Hur thinks about to pass the time.

