or1980v2pt1

Swimming, Diving
and Water Polo
The Olympiiski Swimming Pool was
the site of swimming (7 days), diving
(8 days), and water polo (2 days)
events from July 20 to 29. Water polo
preliminaries (6 days) were staged in
the swimming pool of the Central
Lenin Stadium (seating capacity of
about 10,500).
The swimming pool used by swimmers
and water polo players (8,000
spectators) was separated from the
diving pool (5,000 spectators). Thus,
the swimming and diving competitions
were held simultaneously rather than
one after another as was the case for
the previous Games.
The competition baths of the
Olympiiski Swimming Pool were surrounded
with galleries where from the
underwater techniques of swimmers
could be observed through special
windows.
As agreed upon with the International
Amateur Swimming Federation
(FINA), the following equipment was
used:
— swimming and water polo
markers and floating goals
supplied by Sport Kombinat of
Yugoslavia and Meyer-Hagen of the
FRG;
— springboards and diving boards
made by Arcadia Air Products of the
USA;
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— Sportflex Supper X platform
surfacing by Mondo Rubber S.p.A. of
Italy;
— Mikasa 6000 water polo balls
supplied by Myojyo Rubber Industry
Co., Ltd of Japan;
— lap counters, swimming boards,
floats, glasses, belts, rubber shoes,
nose clips, ear plugs, water polo flags,
caps with protectors, officials' cards
supplied by Hind-Wells Inc. of the
USA;
— goal nets of Bridport-Gundry
Ltd. of Great Britain.
Timekeeping for swimming events
in the Olympiiski Swimming Pool was
the responsibility of Swiss
Timing/Omega of Switzerland. The
company supplied a multipurpose
bulb letter-digital scoreboard (12 lines
of 32 characters each) and automatic
timekeeping equipment interfaced
with the scoreboard. This system
made registration of results practically
all-automatic; it detected false starts,
measured time of each swimmer after
a 50-m lap and the number of laps
covered, and summed up a final result.
After the last competitor had
finished a heat, it displayed the results
on the scoreboard listing the contestants
in the order of placing and
printed out a scoresheet. In addition,
the system automatically compared