As I mentioned previously, the Bulli SKY camera has always been located - or aimed - from just past the finishing post. It is notorious for the problems it creates. Doubly so when the dogs are wide apart.

Presumably, the Finishlynx camera is differently located but we trust it is at 90 degrees or nearly so.

Even so, that doubt about positioning is one of the reasons I pointed out that various mechanical issues can and do impose themselves on the evidence before the judge - and why using three decimal places is inconsistent with that level of accuracy.

As an aside, the film of this race also demonstrates a flaw in track design which has been there since the year dot. The latter part of the home turn and the turn into the straight is too flat - which is why many dogs (including this winner) are thrown to the outside. On the old (pre-flood) dual track I have even seen a dog get an elbow and be forced to jump the intervening fence (it finished 6th).

Had the track been properly contoured, this winner would likely have had a margin of a couple of lengths, not a nose.

Proper supervision would have stopped this design flaw occurring in the first place. The post flood job was entirely under the control of the local club (not GBOTA).

As another aside, why have sectional times disappeared under the GBOTA reign? That's not good for National qualifications.

Rich.

That's the way it is.

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Don't know where you get your info from, but its WRONG , we GBOTA, still use sectional time within 100th of a second to seperate first 4 to determine final starters..

BTW We need a "Protest System Introduced" asap.....He He He

Good for you but they do not appear on the official results pages on Ozchase. Secret info is hardly of much use to anyone else.

There are three subject areas here ...

1. Deciding the finishing positions.
2. The worth of the equipment in use to assist the judge.
3. Two or three decimal places.

#1 is always decided by the judge's eye. Always. He may or may not have a pile of gear to assist him. For greyhound racing that usually amounts to a Finshlynx software system working in a variety of circumstances and in a variety of hardware across the nation. That software holds the data file (race film) and a Finishlynx-supplied vertical line which is then displayed on the screen and which is adjustable (working just like the cursor on your screen as you write words). You can move your cursor; the judge can move his vertical line. Both move over the top of whatever is on the screen to start with.

Pre-Finishlynx, judges used a normal photo and a magnifying glass. We have now improved on the magnifying glass. That's all.

For AFL and ARL decisions, judges (bunkers) also use their eye while moving the image back and forth. Very similar.

Athletics is very similar to racing. Swimming is not - the order and the times are decided by connecting eight underwater plates electronically to a central point. They must touch the plates.

Some times can be established by noting when a runner broke a beam - eg for greyhound sectional times. That beam is supposedly aimed at right angles to the track but I seriously doubt that it is - or could be - accurate to three decimal places.

In all cases there will be some variability in the nature or quality of the equipment in use, just as no two otherwise identical motor cars achieve precisely the same maximum speed. That need not lead to any errors in deciding the placings but it could lead to marginal errors or differences between any two timing systems.

Most certainly, nothing in those greyhound systems supports the concept that timing to three decimal places makes any sense. Quite the reverse.

The eye is the real force. Times are just tacked on to the basic decision like lacquer on the dining room table. One is a prime determinant, the other is just applied science - ie secondary.

For record keeping - as you ask - times are a clerically convenient way of listing the outcomes. The national convention is to use only two decimal places - including in GRV records or formguides. Also note that the electronic times and the Finishlynx times are almost always slightly different. That's why you see the semaphore board show a different time to the official verdict.

Your last sentence is therefore irrelevant - they cannot "use" the third decimal place - they can only apply it to a decision already made.

And so on and so forth.

PS In the Ipswich case quoted elsewhere the judge did not decide the race on the basis of a time. He placed the dogs by eye and then wrote down a time to suit the circumstances. As always.

Sorry Darryl,
No results are showing for Wenty on 9th July 2018.
Is the date right?

Here you go mate.

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Good lookin' too.