WATCH: LEN Press Conference Explaining Timing System Error

Reported by Anne Lepesant.

The Ligue Européenne de Natation (LEN), Europe’s governing body for aquatic sports affiliated to FINA, has issued a statement concerning the discovery of an error in the configuration of the timing system at the 2018 European Swimming Championships in Glasgow on Saturday, 4 August 2018. LEN’s Technical Swimming Committee conducted an investigation and found that “the starting mechanism had been incorrectly configured prior to the start of the session which resulted in all reported times being 0.10s faster due to a configuration delay of 0.10s.”

LEN insists that only 9 heats were affected, and that the prior three sessions, as well as the events in the fourth session that took place after the error was discovered, were not affected. As a result, the LEN TSC has gone back and readjusted all the times swum in the following events on Saturday:

  • Women’s 800m freestyle
  • Men’s 100m breaststroke
  • Women’s 100m butterfly
  • Men’s 100m freestyle semi-finals
  • Women’s 100m breaststroke semi-finals
  • Men’s 200m butterfly semi-finals

Great Britain’s Adam Peaty’s winning time in the 100 breast, originally reported as a new World Record of 57.00, has been adjusted to 57.10. Peaty still clears the World Record; the previous mark of 57.13 belonged to him from the 2016 Olympic Games. He owns the 14 fastest times in history in the event.

To be clear, according to LEN, the races that were not affected are as follows:

  • All sessions on 3 August, morning
  • All sessions on 3 August, evening
  • All sessions of 4 August, morning
  • Men’s 50m backstroke race on 4 August, evening
  • Women’s 50m freestyle on 4 August, evening
  • Mixed 4x200m freestyle relay on 4 August, evening

LEN has announced they will respond to questions relating to the timing error after finals tonight. “LEN Officials will be happy to answer questions from 19.15 hrs today (after the conclusion of today’s session) in the Jury Room at the Tollcross Swimming Centre.”

You can read the official statement here.

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@JakeShell
5 years ago

Many thoughts…I can certainly feel their pain.

Rev
Reply to  @JakeShell
5 years ago

Reminds me of icsa meet at liberty in March however the difference was .39. Could they be underestimating the error to protect the record

AfterShock
5 years ago

Of course, it’s the default’s fault!

I don’t think I’m ever going to trust a WR until I hear that the configuration of the starting timing was not set on the default.

Gators
5 years ago

Can’t imagine any sport/event that requires a manual start offset, unless …

AWSI DOOGER
5 years ago

Good thing the erred time wasn’t 56.99. That would have been exponentially more problematic to take away

Becky D
5 years ago

This reminds me too much of my day job.

Me: [simplified explanation of what technical problem that occurred, followed by apologies]
Angered customer: I don’t get it. How could this happen?
Me: [expanded explanation, including aspects of the customer’s unique configuration that contributed to the failure, followed by additional apologies]
Angered customer: Has this happened before?
Me: [recitation of compounded small probabilities, followed by passive-aggressive remark masquerading as an apology]
Angered customer: Why didn’t you tell me about this before?
Me: [description of non-stop work over the past two days to fully qualify the issue]
Angered customer: Well, I’ve never heard of this before.
Me: …

GO SARAH SJÖSTRÖM
5 years ago

So clumsy…

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Coleman Hodges

Coleman started his journey in the water at age 1, and although he actually has no memory of that, something must have stuck. A Missouri native, he joined the Columbia Swim Club at age 9, where he is still remembered for his stylish dragon swim trunks. After giving up on …

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