UK Photo-Finish Data, 1958-1980

From 1958, all major meetings at White City and Crystal Palace were covered by Racecourse Technical Services. B.A.A.B. teams took over the operating following the acquisition of an Omega "Photosprint" in 1974. A camera was also installed at Meadowbank in 1972, but used somewhat spasmodically until the end of the decade.

For a year-by-year index of meetings covered, and links to each year's results, go to Catalogue of meetings

Inevitably not all meetings have been documented. In the early years photo-finish data was treated as highly secret information, and only the perspicacity of Harold Abrahams ensured that it was not lost to posterity. Ironically, in the later years (particularly 1978-80) the results of many smaller meetings increasingly covered by photo-finish were not preserved, so the data is incomplete for these. Any reader who can provide original documentation in any of these cases is asked to contact Peter Matthews .

In these compilations, times in brackets are (for the most part) the "official" returns. These were originally manual times - at least until the mid-1970s, when photo-finish times gradually began to take precedence. There were, however, several occasions when the manual times were adjusted according to the readings from the camera.

Timing rules for rounding off were altered several times during the period covered by these compilations, as the following shows:

(A)	I.A.A.F. Rules (fully-automatic timing)
	pre-1964	No formal policy
	1964-70	Photo-finish times start to be used for international championships, but the timer mechanism was adjusted with a delay of 0.05 sec. Times rounded off to the nearest tenth e.g. 3:59.95-4:00.04 = 4:00.0 4:00.05-4:00.14 = 4:00.1, etc. Registration to fifths for events above 1 mile
	1971-76	Timer delay adjustment discontinued Registration to fifths for events above 1 mile
	1977-78	Registration in hundredths for events up to 440 yards, and to tenths for track events above 440 yards
	1979-80	Rounding up (instead of to nearest tenth) e.g. 3:59.91-4:00.00 = 4:00.0 4:00.01-4:00.10 = 4:00.1, etc. Registration unchanged
	1981+	Rounding discontinued for events up to 20km.

(B)	A.A.A. Rules
	pre-1980	Times rounded off to nearest tenth Registration to fifths for events above 1 mile
	1980+	Same as I.A.A.F. Rules.

Catalogue of meetings

Photo-Finish Data for Major Championships

These pages cover initially European Championships, with the intention of being extended to provide Olympic Games and other major championships data - some of which has been previously published in printed form.

Go to European Championships data

Commonwealth Games data

Virtually all photo-finish details of the 1978 Commonwealth Games have now been obtained, after being hidden for over 20 years.

Full results of every Commonwealth Games, including all known photo-finish data, may be found in Rob Whittingham's Athletics at the Commonwealth Games, available from www.umbraathletics.com.