Just Keep Swimming

On 13 August, 2016, last Saturday, our tiny nation won its first Olympic Gold Medal thanks to Joseph Schooling. He won the 100m butterfly stroke with a time of 50:39 seconds. Not only did he came in first, he also broke the Olympics record with this timing of his.

The competition also saw three swimmers finishing in runner-up position at the exact same timing, which got many people wondering - why do we keep seeing ties in swimming?

To help answer this, you can head to this website and read the article. The gist of it is that while we are able to construct a clock accurate enough to measure time to a high significant number, we are unable to do the same when constructing a swimming pool. Keeping the tolerance range of one pool's dimension to the next close to zero will make construction a nightmare. This is why we only consider the sport of swimming times down to a hundredth of a second, i.e. two decimal places, which results in the many ties we see in swimming competitions.

Perhaps when construction technology advances, pools can be made more accurately and we can then measure swimming times down to the thousandth of a second. Maybe, just maybe, there will be less ties.

Nevertheless, we want to applaud Joseph Schooling of his individual achievement in this year's Rio Olympics 2016. Thank you Jo! Keep the Singapore flag flying high!!