Olympic starting gun gives positional advantage

New Scientist reports: [edited]

When Olympic sprinters dash down the track in Beijing this August, the fastest athlete may not take home the gold medal. Current start-gun technology gives athletes on the inside lanes an unfair advantage right off the blocks.

Sound from the starter gun is known to take longer to reach athletes who start from the outside lanes than their competitors on the inside. Now a new study suggests that competitors nearest the gun have another advantage – the loudness of the bang shocks them into starting more quickly.

Together, these extra boosts may amount to more than a tenth of a second in some races, which is easily enough to make the difference between gold and silver.
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