or1980v2pt1

Computerised Results
Service
Vast amounts of data have to be
processed in the course of preparation
and staging of the Olympic
Games. This is the reason why the
organisers resort to computers, particularly
in the administration of and
supply of information about Olympic
competitions.
Computers were first used to process
the results at the Winter Games
in Squaw Valley in 1960. That experience
had demonstrated that computers
considerably accelerate data processing
and presentation of results in
a format most suitable for users. Thus,
computers were used practically at all
the subsequent Olympic Games. Organisers
of the 1968 Olympic Games
in Mexico tried to do without them
and immediately encountered great
difficulties as they had to engage the
tremendous number of personnel to
handle and to deliver information to
those who needed it.
The previous Olympic Games gave
rise to certain regulations and traditions
for the provision of data.
For example, result summaries
had been issued on the day of
closing the Games (in Munich and
Montreal).
The OCOG-80 decided to use automatic
computerised systems to perform
the following tasks:
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— preparation and organisation of
the Games;
— registration of competitors and
officials of national teams;
— results processing;
— information and inquiry services
for the media, technical officials, and
officials;
— prompt supply of results to international
and national news agencies;
— issue of daily results journals
and participant and results brochures.
The huge amount of information
involved, a great variety of its flows,
the scattering of its sources and addresses
over many locations, extremely
high specifications for completeness,
reliability and speed of processing
the data called for creation of a
complex of automatic results systems.
They included: ACS "Information",
ACS "Competitions", ACS "OCOG", a
computerised results service for international
and national news agencies
(SIMTA-80), a computerised system for
printing daily journals and brochures
("Express" system).
The first three systems were integrated
into an automatic dataprocessing
system which was named
ACS "Olympiad". The SIMTA-80 and
Express systems were based on data
supplied by ACS "Olympiad".