ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��

Currently, the procedure used at the start of speed-skating is tantamount to a lottery. This is according to researchers at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� and the ľ�ϸ���Ӱ�� of Oxford in the academic journal Frontiers in Psychology. The time between the referee’s call of “ready” and the firing of the starting shot varies from race to race. “The longer it takes for the starting shot to sound, the slower the skaters’ finishing time.” One of the researchers is Beorn Nijenhuis, former Dutch skating champion in the 1,000 and 1,500 metres.

Together with experimental psychologists Edwin Dalmaijer and Stefan van der Stigchel, Nijenhuis analysed the 500m sprint at the 2010 Olympic Games. This revealed that what is known as the ready-start-interval, the number of seconds between the referee’s alerting call and the firing of the starting shot, has an influence on the athlete’s finishing time. The longer the interval is, the slower the finishing time.

First or fifth place

In the 500m sprint, the discrepancies between the intervals in each race can make a difference between winning Olympic gold and returning home empty-handed. Stefan van der Stigchel, experimental psychologist: “If the interval is just one second longer, the men finish on average 299 milliseconds slower. For the women, that figure reaches even 672 milliseconds. In the 500m, that is the difference between the first and fifth places.” In the skating races analysed, the time interval between the alerting call of “ready” and the starting shot varied from approximately 3.5 to 5.5 seconds.

Alertness

One possible explanation for this correlation is alertness. Athletes who have the good fortune of starting the race with as short a ready-start-interval as possible appear to respond more alertly to the starting shot. This alertness diminishes the longer the starting shot takes and therefore has consequences for the finishing time.” This means that skaters who start a race with a longer interval end up losing out compared to those who start with a shorter interval.

Slightly fairer

According to the researchers, the problem can easily be rectified. Master’s student at Utrecht ľ�ϸ���Ӱ��, co-author of the article and former Olympic skater Beorn Nijenhuis: “The solution is to make sure that the ready-start-interval does not vary, but is the same for every race. That would be slightly fairer than the current skating starting procedure.”