On August 27, 1960, at the Olympics in Rome, one of the most controversial gold medals was awarded. At the 100-meter freestyle menâs swimming event, Australian swimmer John Devitt and American Lance Larson both recorded the same finish time of 55.2 seconds. Only Devitt walked away with the gold medal.
The way swimming was timed was by using three timers per lane, all with stopwatches, from which an average was taken. In the rare occurrence there was a tie, a head judge, in this case Hans Runströmer from Sweden, was on hand to adjudicate. Despite Larson being technically one-tenth of a second quicker, Runströmer decreed the times were the same and declared for Devitt.
It was this controversy that, by 1968, had led to Omega developing touch boards for the ends of swimming lanes so the athletes could stop timing themselves, removing any risk of human error.
Alain Zobrist, head…
