The Sports Section: How Omega Captured The Men’s 100m Final Photo Finish (And The Watch Noah Lyles Wore While Winning)
Over the weekend, I was taking a break from putting together an upcoming Olympics watch spotting when I decided to grab a slice of pizza. At that same moment, in stark contrast to my dietary habits, the eight fastest men in the world were about to put on a show. Everyone in the pizza joint had stopped what they were doing, and together, we watched one of the closest finishes in Olympic history. The final winning time was 9.784 seconds. Just 0.005 seconds separated U.S.A.’s Noah Lyles gold medal run and Kishane Thompson of Jamaica. Five milliseconds. It takes an human one TENTH of a second to blink. That’s wild. And thanks to a photo from Omega’s line-scan (or slit-scan) photo finish camera called the Omega Scan’O’Vision, we can see how close 0.005 looks.
Photo: courtesy Omega
If the photo looks strange to you, it’s because of the (tried and true) technology used for it. While technology has changed over the years, digital cameras take 1-pixel-wide sequential images of the finish line using a vertical aperture (and taking as many photos as the camera possibly can). It’s not so much a picture of a moment in time but of position in space. In fact, the entire photo is literally the finish line viewed one pixel at a time (the Omega and Olympic branding is added at the top).
Back in the film days, the film moved across behind a “slit,” headed in the same direction as the runner. If the film moves too fast, the finishers look compressed; too slow, and the athletes look like Gumby. In this case, the camera was the Omega Scan’O’Vision Ultimate – an upgrade from the previous 10,000 fps Scan’O’Vision Myria – that can take up to 40,000 frames per second of the finish line, to make the image you see above. The red lines represent the position used by the officials to judge whose torso reached the line first. This time, the order for 1-2-3 was Lyles, Thompson, and U.S.A.’s Fred Kerley. It’s Lyles’ first Olympic gold.
U.S.A.’s Noah Lyles psyching himself up ahead of the race. Photo: Getty Images
Not only is a moment like this a big technological triumph for the official Olympic timekeepers, but Omega had the added bonus of Noah Lyles doing it all while wearing a Speedmaster Apollo 8 Dark Side of the Moon. That’s not the watch I would have guessed, but after watching the Olympics for over a week, I’ve seen him wear it a number of times – even in advertisements for other sponsors of the games.
The Omega Speedmaster Apollo 8 “Dark Side of the Moon.”
Yes, Lyles is a brand ambassador for Omega, but I’m still always shocked that the athletes are wearing watches during their races. If you’re looking for a more “by the numbers” look at Lyles’ win, Omega has this data as well. Lyles’ reaction time was 0.178s, with a top speed of 43.6kph or 27 miles per hour. Wearing a watch didn’t seem to hurt Lyles at all – he’s now “the fastest man in the world” and a gold medal winner at the Paris Olympics 2024.
Noah Lyles after winning gold. Photo: Getty Images
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