Skiing on a steep downhill is called Alpine skiing.
Five kinds of comptition in the Alpine skiing are slalom, giant slalom, super giant slalom, downhill, and Alpine combined in which both slalom and downhill records are estimated.
In the downhill competition the maximum speed reaches more than 130 km/h.
The skier may be gone away while you blink your eyes.
The Alpine skier goes into the starting gate and wait for the electronic sound.
Once the sound begins like Pip,Pip, Pip..., the skier has to start within ten seconds.
When the cross bar was pushed by the skier, the timer starts to count every 1/100 second. At the goal, when the skier crosses the electric beam, the signal is sent through the cable to stop the timer. Thus the time is recorded during the competition.
Time record is then sent to the huge score board in front of the spectators by the online computer.
It is also sent to the TV station so that people in front of the TV can see the results immediately.
Alpine competition is the time race where the winner is decided after every skier's time measurement.
Failure in even a single skier's time measurement means failure of the whole competition.
Stable and accurate measurement system is necessary.
Wireless system, though very convenient, may get disturbance from outside condition.
So the electric cable is always used whatever distance it may be.
