How do they do that?

We have a lot of mail from people asking how we get the Mark Roundings and Results out onto the web. The following is a simplified version of how it all works and a few photos to show you some of the people involved.

At each Mark, the Start boat and also the Finish boat, there are two volunteers, operating equipment supplied by Swatch Timing, the official timekeepers of the Olympics.

On the start boat, the volunteer presses the button to start the timer on the start sequence. This is linked to a large display on the boat that shows the competitors how long till the start. This is the official time used by the Race Committee.

Once the race starts and boats start rounding the marks, one of the volunteers presses the clicker each time a competitor passes the mark. The second person operates an input device with a small keyboard, entering the competitor country code.

The input device contains what is easiest to describe as a "radio modem". The signal is sent back to two towers on shore and via a landline back to the Sherarton Hotel race site, approximately 10 miles up river from the race sites. At the Sheraton, the signal is received on two computers and the whole process monitored by Swatch Technicians.

Elaine Kitchens and Nancy Cope keeping an eye on the races.

The data is then sent to the IBM Results trailer where it is monitored by a team of volunteers who check the validity of the data, input any manual changes for PMS, DNF, etc. At the completion of the race, the finish boat is called via cellular phone and a set of finish places called in. This is checked against the electronically transmitted results and if any problems are encountered, manual changes are entered.

There are 8 computers monitoring the results - one for each race in progress. In addition there are IBM staff on site to monitor all of the machines, perform daily backups, etc. Despite press reports of problems in IBM systems, the onsite sailing systems have performed without a hitch and the only problem has been the passing of information to other systems. The information from the results goes to several locations, each requiring different information in different formats. The TV crews require information to generate the graphics for the live TV coverage (did anyone see any TV coverage of the sailing? New Zealand TV did a fantastic job .....), journalists require results, the official IBM/ACOG WWW site, etc.

The full onshore results team below are: Keith Barnwell, Joyce Galloway, Chuck Hooker, Lou Spagner, Sarah Kartman, Elaine Kitchens, John Hamilton, Neal McIntosh, Nancy Hamilton, Duane Anderson, Ashley Ogletree, Vivian Long, Scott Gobin, Aileen Bel, Joy Watts, Steve Colitz, Nancy Cope, Maria Cockrum.

At the end of the chain is the IYRU supplied techie, Paul Pascoe, who has access to the IBM data, reformats it for the internet and FTP's it onto the US and UK web servers. To assist the live TV coverage, updates to the race being televised are done every minute, while other classes are updated every five minutes. Overall results are posted after they have been manually checked for accuracy and released by IBM.

For the propeller heads out there, the IBM system runs OS/2 storing information on a DB2 database. The IYRU system uses Visual REXX running under OS/2 to automatically format the HTML send to the web.