why do they still use a starting pistol sound to start running events in the olympics when many other sports use a beep or tone of some kind?
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Probably tradition, but when I did athletics at school in the 1970s thy still used starting pistols.
One reason I believe, is that the officials timing events were located at the finish line. Even for an event such as the 100m, it still took some time for the sound to travel to the timekeepers. They didn’t listen out for the sound of the gun, instead they looked for the puff of smoke from the gun as their signal to start timing.
Nowadays with digital timing systems, the starting pistol is a relic.
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