Technology in the Summer Olympics: #London2012

This Friday will mark the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. While the Olympics have always symbolized traditions of the past, it will be exciting to see how technology impacts this years’ competition.

Timing is crucial during the Olympics. Just think of the 100m dash —  a fraction of a second is the difference between the gold, silver or no medal at all. Omega is the official timekeeper of the London 2012 Olympic Games, providing scoreboards, countdowns and some new timing technologies that will allow for more data-crunching than ever before. One such technology, The Quantum Timer, can simultaneously compare 16 competitors at once with accuracy down to one-millionth of a second.

With advanced timing comes advanced analytics. This is the first year that data from all 26 Olympic events will be fed to Atos’ Commentator Information System (CIS.) Results from Omega are relayed to CIS in less than a second, which are instantly shared with Olympic officials, broadcasters around the world, press agencies, etc. In addition to the competitive results, CIS takes into account the many factors that can affect who gets the gold- athlete information, weather, event schedules and more. Atos predicts a 30% increase in data captured at the 2012 London Games compared to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Another way technology is playing a role in the 2012 Games is through social media. You can stay up to date on Olympic happenings with Twitter, Facebook and Olympic websites (London2012.com, Olympic.org, NBCOlympics.com.) If Olympic athletes are social media gold, then the Olympic Hub is the jackpot.  Find out which athletes have the most followers on Twitter, learn about featured athletes from around the world and get the latest Olympic updates.

But wait, there’s more! Follow #London2012 on Twitter to get a live feed of the Opening Ceremony this Friday. Wondering where the Olympic torch is right now? You can find out on Twitter by searching for #London2012TorchRelay for the latest.

How will you stay connected during the #London2012 games?