[tzs]

> This happens in swimming because of the tolerance of making an olympic spec pool. A good swimmer goes a bit over 2mm every 0.001s. The pools have 3cm tolerance meaning the lanes are not the exact same length (it would be crazy expensive to make pools to smaller tolerances).

It would be crazy expensive to make the pools to such a small tolerance, perhaps, but it is not the length of the pool that actually counts, is it? It is the distance to the touch pad that counts.

Would it be crazy expensive to make the touch pad mounting system adjustable so that the position of each lane's pad could be adjusted to millimeter or even sub-millimeter tolerances?

[doikor]

Main problem is old pools that don't have space for this (would make the pool under length). In general the same rules are used in all levels of competition. The only difference at the moment is minimum pool depth for world championships and olympics which is a bit deeper.

But yes in general new competition pools are built to be slightly larger than 50m and you just adjust the pads at the ends.

[toast0]

Many swim races are more than one lap, so you would have to adjust the touch pads for lap count.

[opwieurposiu]

You could equalize the length of the lanes, but there are water currents that give different lanes "headwinds" or "tailwinds". These are caused by the pumps, wave action, and thermal convection.