Advances in technology 

Today’s photo-finish cameras can record up to 10,000 digital images per second, while timers offer an enhanced resolution of one millionth of a second. The high-resolution scoreboards installed at modern stadiums display anything and everything from text and live information to animations, athlete pictures and visual imagery.

Though a world away from such precision and technical sophistication, Stockholm 1912 was nevertheless an important milestone in the ongoing relationship between the Olympic Games and the technological world, with all three of those innovations – photo-finish cameras, precision timing and electronic scoreboards – making their Games debut in the Swedish capital.

Accurate to a tenth of a second, the automated timing devices used in the track and field and swimming competitions in 1912 provided a back-up to manually operated stop watches, which were capable of 1/5-second precision. Both continued to be used in the years that followed, and it was not until Mexico City 1968 that electronic timers took precedence in terms of providing official results. Another innovation was the photo-finish camera employed at the Games of the V Olympiad, which was first used to separate US athletes Abel Kiviat and Norm Taber in the men’s 1,500m final in Stockholm. Both runners recorded times of 3:56.9, with the photo device showing that Kiviat was slightly ahead of his compatriot as he crossed the line.

Finally, the electronic scoreboard developed by the Committee for Athletics and installed at the Olympic Stadium was three-sided and had a hoisting system to display information such as athlete numbers and their times or the distance of their throws. Such innovations added to the spectacle and helped increase spectator engagement in events.