No 

games 

without Measurement

Mass

64 kg

Amount of

substance

(Stimulants) 

10 ng/g

Pressure

180 kPa

Distance

71.2 m

Height

6.14 m

K-5998 [www.kashangroup.com]

Dosimetry

40 μGy per 

image

Speed

58.6 km/h

Time

7:58.80 min

World 

Metrology Day

20 May 2008

Supported by

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Beijing 

Olympic Stadium
WWoorrllddMMeettrroollooggyyDDaayy

Message 2008 

No games without Measurement 

Dear Metrology Friends and Colleagues world-wide, 

As a young man, I was a half-mile†

 runner. Then, aged 

eighteen, the only metrology which concerned me was 

whether my time was below 2 minutes... with the occasional 

brief anxieties about the friction between the track and my 

running shoes. Today, metrology matters more than ever 

before in all sports. As 2008 is an Olympic year, for our World 

Metrology Day this May, we must all aim to bring home the 

message that precise measurement is vital in today’s sports 

and genuinely important to today’s sportsmen and women. 

We are all currently aware of the increasingly vigorous 

competition at every level of sport – amateur as well as 

professional - as athletes coax their minds and muscles to 

deliver continuously improved performance. Measurements, 

as well as photographic images, play a big role in judging their 

performance: races can be lost by hundredths of a second or field events by fractions of a 

millimetre. A photo finish may capture that fractional moment pictorially, and can be used to 

decide the winner, but it does not help us to compare one athlete’s performance with his/her 

own personal best or with someone else’s in previous competition. Indeed it is accurate 

measurement which inspires our confidence in fair play. Local conditions need to be factored in, 

for example, so that athletes don't gain an unfair advantage through wind speed or temperature. 

The equipment used – whether weights, racing bicycles or even footballs - needs to be checked 

precisely. We can attribute improved track times to better shoes, better track surfaces, better 

training – yes – but no-one would suggest that the second is longer now than in the past or that 

the metre is shorter. We take it for granted that our units are stable in space and time. 

The metrology behind the Games, of course, varies in its difficulty 

and in its impact, as the posters prepared for this year’s World 

Metrology Day show all too clearly. Perhaps the most difficult and 

controversial problems of all involve the monitoring of 

performance-enhancing drugs. Careers can be destroyed and 

medals humiliatingly withdrawn if an athlete is proved to have been taking such drugs or is 

found cheating. Here at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM) we have 

worked with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the National Measurement Institute of 

Australia (NMIA) to allow a number of National Metrology Institutes (NMIs) to participate in 

international comparisons of measurements of the levels of performance-enhancing drugs. This 

activity has confirmed that high levels of confidence in the testing process can be achieved if 

such measurements are carried out carefully in accredited and well 

managed laboratories. The necessity for drug testing is, unfortunately, 

one of the more unpleasant and “un-sportive” aspects of contemporary 

competition. Random sampling of blood and urine has become 

commonplace – something never even contemplated amongst my 

contemporaries. With better measurement and more sensitive testing 

processes we can all hope that this aspect of sporting life can be greatly 

reduced or, even one day, eliminated. 

However, the message of World Metrology Day 2008 (WMD 2008) reaches even more deeply 

into the fundamentals of sport. Fairness and comparability of performance are the two basic 

 

†

 1⁄2 mile = 804.672 metre 

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rrruuunnnnnniiinnngggttthhheee1⁄21⁄21⁄2mmmiiillleeeiiinnn

111999777000.

..
criteria on which competition is based. At the heart of this is careful measurement of almost 

every aspect of sport. Clearly the basic concepts of time, height and distance are obvious 

elements of track and field athletics, swimming, cycling, to name just a few. We may believe that 

the basic metrology is self-evident but we all need to take account of a number of extra factors 

which influence the results. The temperature of water in a swimming pool has a significant 

influence on a lane length. A light javelin used by one athlete, rather than another, may increase 

the distance of a throw by an amount which may make all the difference between a Gold medal 

and a Silver one. As we know from Formula One motor sport, advanced materials can make 

huge differences. The skill of the driver is enhanced by the skill of the engineer. In recent years, 

we have seen the use of advanced materials in the manufacture of the pole used in a pole vault, 

of oars and boats used in rowing events, or in a lightweight bicycle where engineering design 

has created machines which are as elegant as they are fast. Sport has always provided a warm 

welcome for new and challenging materials – carbon fibres, for example, found one of their first 

applications in golf clubs during the nineteen eighties. 

The supporting posters and booklets, which have been produced for WMD 2008, highlight many 

more, sometimes less expected, influence-factors which have to be monitored and checked 

against references. Whilst sport metrology may not always be as sophisticated or as demanding 

as in other areas where measurement is important, it nevertheless requires the core cultures of 

precise measurement: accurate and calibrated reference standards and an appreciation of 

uncertainty. Today, indeed, reference standards do seem to be widely accepted as important, 

but that only constitutes part of the equation: uncertainty poses more of a problem. A judge 

wants to be given a yes/no answer to questions about whether a wind-speed, a weight, a 

possible level of drugs is within the acceptable limits or not. This is a difficult challenge for us 

metrologists who always tend to build in the acceptance of an uncertainty with our 

measurements. We know that no measurement can ever be without error but it is often hard to 

persuade – or even educate – legislators, regulators or others, that lack of precision is a natural 

fact of life. In sport, perhaps, the levels of acceptable precision may be such that the highest 

levels of metrology may not be needed, but we must aspire to it, nevertheless. Elsewhere in 

legislation and regulation, the case may be clearer cut. 

On this broader front, the BIPM is working hard with other intergovernmental organizations. We 

want to see how we can help, especially by using the data on accuracy and uncertainty which 

we glean from international comparisons and the uncertainties which NMIs, and those 

laboratories which depend on them, associate with their calibration services. We work with the 

accreditation community and specialised bodies such as the International Federation of Clinical 

Chemistry (IFCC), the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), the Food and Agriculture 

Organization (FAO), and many others who have specialised knowledge of their application 

areas to encourage greater attention by them, and the communities they represent, to 

traceability and uncertainty. We have already achieved significant successes and have attracted 

new partners and collaborators but more needs to be done. We welcome contacts and 

collaborations with all who wish to improve measurement practice in their areas of specialist 

expertise. I hope we are not over-confident in saying that we have very nearly achieved this 

goal in most areas of physics and engineering. The new challenges for us all lie in chemical 

metrology, and in traceability of measurements in nutrition, forensic science, and medicine, for 

example. 

Last year, the theme "Measurements in our Environment," 

attracted a huge amount of attention from NMIs and other 

international bodies. Some 85 national events to mark WMD 

were held in 63 Member States and Associates, as well as in 

States which have, as yet, no formal links with the BIPM. In 

partnership with the Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB) in Germany and the National 

Metrology Institute of South Africa (NMISA), the BIPM prepared an initial poster for WMD 2007 

which, with the collaboration of a number of other NMIs, was translated into 18 languages, 

giving 32 versions of the poster. I know that we shall greatly 

exceed this number of languages for the poster for 2008. This 

is an unprecedented level of success, far exceeding anything 

of which I ever dreamed when my first World Metrology Day 

message was launched in 2004. 
222000000777WWWooorrrllldddMMMeeetttrrrooolllooogggyyyDDDaaayyypppooos

ssttteeerrr 222000000888WWWooorrrllldddMMMeeetttrrrooolllooogggyyyDDDaaayyypppooosssttteeerrr

Our new partners for 2008 include the National Physical 

Laboratory (NPL) in the UK who have updated a previous 

brochure on “Measurement in Sport" and intend to promote it 

to a general public. Their brochure, as with other WMD 

material, is available for translation. We 

are also delighted to be working with the International Organization of 

Legal Metrology (OIML) and the National Institute of Metrology (NIM) in 

China, and we wish our Chinese colleagues every 

success in their hosting of the Olympic Games. 

These new partners have come to join in the increasing 

success and impact of World Metrology Day in previous years and I am sure 

that the 2008 event will be followed by tens of thousands of metrologists 

world-wide, as well as by many others through national days or other 

initiatives. 

 

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Our motto for 2008, "No games without Measurement," may be stating the obvious but we all 

know that measurement is important to nearly all aspects of society. So let us use WMD 2008 to 
press our message home to a particular group of people with whom we may normally have little 

contact, in the hope that they will appreciate what we do for them! Let us all hope they may go 

on to appreciate the importance of good measurement in its broadest contexts in our world. 

I wish you all a happy and successful World Metrology Day... Now, where did I put those old 

running shoes? 

Andrew Wallard 

Director of the BIPM 
To ensure fairness in the Olympics, it is important to check the pressures of inflatable sports balls 

like footballs and volleyballs: the pressure inside a ball affects its bounce, so standardising the 

pressure ensures balls behave as the players expect. 

The pressure of the air in a sports ball is measured by a pressure gauge, and pressure 

gauges are checked against pressure balances

Pressure is defined as force per unit area, and the SI unit of pressure is the pascal, 

which is one newton per square metre – and a newton is about the force with 

which an apple presses onto the hand. The normal atmospheric pressure at 

sea level is about 100 thousand pascals, and the pressure inside an Olympic 

football is 180 thousand pascals.

In practice, quite a wide margin is permitted on the pressures of balls 

used in the Olympics The reason for this is that the pressure of 

air depends on its temperature, and the temperature of 

a ball changes throughout a game: when it is dropped 

from warm hands into cold mud, for instance.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Pressure

Pressure is the force of impact of air molecules – so the more 

molecules are squeezed into a football, the higher the pressure 

inside it. Heating the ball makes the molecules move faster and hit 

harder, so that also increases the pressure.

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_PRES1 1 2008/04/01 08
From the millimetres that separate losers from winners in archery to the 42,195 metres of 

a marathon, exact distances are part of many Olympic events.

Rods and rulers are often used to mark out distances – but they need careful design. 

Objects change length as temperature rises and falls, and as a result, rulers are longer at 

the Summer Olympics than at the Winter games. So it is essential to choose a material 

that expands very little with temperature. 

And how do we know a metre rod really is a 

metre long? Until 1960, the ultimate standard 

of lengths were actual rods held in national 

laboratories, but length standards are now 

optical and based on the unchanging 

properties of light.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Distance

100m

200m

400m

800m

1500m

19.32s (37.3 km/h)

43.18s (33.4 km/h)

101.11s (28.5 km/h)

206s (26.2 km/h)

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_DIST1 1 2008/04/01 08
Mass – the quantity we feel as weight – is a part of every Olympic sport. Not only is the mass of practically 

every item of equipment specified, athletes too are sorted into groups according to their mass. For instance, 

adult male weightlifters are divided into 8 classes according to their body mass. 

If an item of equipment is a few grams heavier or lighter than specified, the athlete could be disqualified, 

so accurate weighing machines are essential.

How do we know these machines give the right answers? Because their performance is 

evaluated by weighing standard weights of exact values, to check they display the 

correct values.

We know how heavy the standard weights are by comparing them with 

the weight of the National Prototype of the Kilogram in the host 

country of the sporting event.

In turn, the National Prototypes of the Kilogram are checked 

against the weight of a lump of metal (a mixture of platinum and 

iridium) which is kept in Paris – the International Prototype of 

the Kilogram. 

So, in the end, every weight in the world is compared with 

the International Prototype – which is why the International 

Prototype is priceless.

Mass

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Supported by

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_Mass1 1 2008/04/25 12:57:5
Speed is key to winning many Olympic events, but it is not used to score any 

of them. 

Speed is the distance travelled in a certain time, so in the Olympics it is usually 

these two quantities that are measured. 

Many Olympic cyclists make use of speedometers to keep track of their 

performance, and marathon runners use GPS receivers to determine their speeds. 

Another way to measure speed is by a Doppler radar system (see diagram).

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Speed

The Doppler effect means that the light from an object 

approaching you becomes slightly more blue (or more 

red if the object is receding). The changes are too small to see. 

The effect applies to radio waves and sound too – which is why a 

motor bike or train whistle falls in pitch as the vehicle passes. For the 

Olympics, it is radio waves that are used.

70

Olympic-record speeds – which depend on distance, style and medium

Average Olympic speeds (km/h)

1 500 metre freestyle swimmer

50 metre freestyle swimmer

50 000 metre walk

Marathon

100 metre sprint

1 km time trial (cycling)

Sprint (cycling)

0 10 20 30 40 50 60

59.3 km/h

6.1 km/h

8.2 km/h

13.7 km/h

19.6 km/h

36.6 km/h

71 km/h

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_SPEE1 1 2008/04/01 08
The high jump and pole-vault are the obvious Olympic events where height matters – but they’re not the 

only ones. Goals, nets, hurdles, diving boards – all of them have to be at set up at specified distances 

from the ground.

In 1791 the unit of length was defined as one–ten-millionth of the distance from 

equator to pole through Paris and given the name – metre. But because the Earth’s 

shape changes constantly, it was necessary to define the metre in terms of universal 

properties that do not change. Today we define the metre as the distance that light 

travels in space during a very small and precisely defined 

fraction of a second.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Height

1900 1920 1940 1960 1980

1.6

1.8

2.0

2.2

2.4

Scissors Western Roll

Straddle

Fosbury Flop

Style matters: changing high 

jump techniques over the 

last century meant sudden 

increases in record heights.

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_HEIG1 1 2008/04/01 09
Accurate timing is key to many Olympic events, with hundredths of a second often being all that separates winners 

from losers.

The exact measurement of time is a very well-developed science, and the world’s most accurate clocks 

would not lose or gain a second in thirty million years. What is more challenging in the Olympics is 

deciding and determining exactly what events are to be timed – such as what counts as the end of 

a race. For instance, the 100 m sprint ends when a runner’s torso reaches a point exactly over 

the finish line – and this event is measured by an automatic “slit-video” camera, which scans 

the finishing line up to 2000 times a second. Human judges then view the images to decide 

who wins.

The accuracy of a clock is checked by being compared with more accurate 

ones. Most clocks, including those used at the Olympics, are based on the 

natural “tick” of a crystal of quartz. The accuracy of this tick is compared 

ultimately with that of an atomic clock.

Until 1956, the second was defined as 1/86,400 of a day – but the day’s length varies 

due to the irregular spin of the Earth, so the second is now defined in terms of an 

atomic radiation.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Time

Athletes have accelerated over the 

last century: this graph shows the 

progressively lower times taken to 

run the men’s 100 metres. Note 

the change in the uncertainty of 

results once the manual timing is 

replaced by automatic electronic 

timing in 1976.

1910 1950 1990 2010

Year of competition

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_TIME1 1 2008/04/04 04:09:0
Fairness is crucial to Olympic events, and that means performance-enhancing drugs are banned, and frequent drug 

testing is essential. 

The use of performance-enhancing drugs in sports is not new – Thomas Hicks won the marathon at the 

1904 Olympics, thanks to being dosed by his coach with a cocktail of strychnine and brandy (before and 

during the event!) Following a rise in both drug use and in the awareness of this problem, the International 

Olympic Committee banned doping in 1967. Today, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) specifies 

which performance-enhancing drugs are banned. 

What matters is the number of molecules of the drug in an athlete’s body. The SI unit for the amount of 

substance is the mole: one mole of a drug molecule is 602,214,179,000,000,000,000,000 identical copies 

of that molecule. 

There are three main ways to test for drugs:

Mass spectrometry

Samples are vaporised and then ionised. A 

magnet sends the ions in different directions 

depending on their masses, so they are 

identified by their arrival positions. This is a 

highly accurate but expensive process.

Gas chromatography

Samples are vaporised and passed through 

a tube filled with a mixture of silicon grains 

and liquid. Different components of the 

sample travel at different speeds through the 

tube and so arrive in turn at a detector to be 

identified. This is relatively inexpensive, but 

cannot differentiate components with the 

same travel speed.

Immuno-assays

Antibodies are introduced to the sample, 

and react to the presence of the drug. The 

strength of the response is a measure of the 

amount of drug present. Immuno-assays are 

simpler but less accurate than the other tests.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Amount of

Substance

How a mass spectrometer works

Heater to vaporise 

sample

Electron beam ionises 

sample

Electron source

Particles accelerated into 

magnetic field

Charged 

particle beam

Lightest

Detector

Heaviest

Magnetic field separates particles 

based on mass charge ratio

Magnet

Inject 

sample

1

2

3

4

5

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_SUBS1 1 2008/04/21 12:50:1
Bodies are machines, and athlete’s bodies are machines that are trained and tested to the limit – so they often 

need to be checked for damage. X-rays allow us to see inside the body to check its structures, but, in their 

passage through flesh and bone, X-rays cause damage of many kinds. So, it is important to ensure 

that X ray machines are powerful enough to produce clear images, but not so powerful that the 

health risk is unnecessarily high. 

When X-rays pass through air some of the atoms are stripped of outer electrons and 

become ions. The amount of this ionisation is a measure of the intensity of the X-ray 

beam. To check the output of an X-ray machine a probe called a dosemeter measures 

the amount of ionisation produced.

Usually, the dosemeters are sent to a laboratory to 

undergo these tests. Every year or so, the laboratories 

send their own equipment to their National 

Measurement institute to be checked. 

The SI unit of radiation dose is the sievert, equivalent 

to one joule of energy per kilogram of matter. The 

following chart shows the effects of different doses in 

millisieverts (thousandths of a sievert). A single diagnostic 

X-ray is about 0.01 to 0.1 millisieverts.

Supported by

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Dosimetry

Equivalent UK

mean environmental

dose per month

CT scan

or PET

Tumour therapy dose

per day

0.1 0.3 1 3 10 30 100 300 1, 000 3, 000 10, 000

Completely safe Threshold Damage Fatal

Radiation dose (log scale)

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_DOSI1 1 2008/04/21 12:55:4
The accuracy of the second, as transmitted by microwave signals, is better than 1 in 100,000,000,000 – a clock this 

accurate would lose or gain less than one second in 3000 years. This accuracy is needed in many applications like 

the navigational systems which enable the automatic landing of aircrafts today.

Everything that is measured is based ultimately on a primary standard. In mass, the primary standard is the 

lump of metal (a mixture of platinum and iridium) which is kept in Paris – the International prototype of the 

kilogram. In other base quantities, these primary standards are given in the form of a “recipe” based on the 

unchanging properties of nature such as the speed of light – so that even if all the metrology laboratories 

in the world disappeared, all the primary standards could be recreated. (There is research at present into 

replacing the International prototype of the kilogram with a similar “recipe”.)

Primary standards are defined with incredible accuracy, but there would be little point in this if accurate 

measurements were only possible in metrology laboratories. 

So, how do we know our watches, bathroom scales, or rulers are accurate?

There is always a chain of traceable measurements – watches, scales and rulers are set by the factories that 

make them, using devices which are checked against a working standard in a metrology laboratory. The 

testing laboratories use reference standards, checked finally by national metrology institutes (NMI) against 

primary standards. The national metrology institutes of the world, in collaboration with the International 

Bureau of Weights and Measures (BIPM), ensures that all the primary standards 

give consistent answers.

World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Traceability

Example: 

Germany

Example: 

Argentina

Assuring traceability works like this:

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_Trac1 1 2008/04/25 12
Everything that is measured has a unit associated with it, from wind chill to heat insulation, and there are thousands 

of such units in use around the world.

The first step in simplifying this is the metric system – so while distance units like the mile, hand or ångström 

are still in use, the internationally recognised standard unit of legnth is the metre. Where distances are too 

short or long to be measured in metres, new units are defined simply by multiplying or dividing the metre 

by ten as many times as necessary (left).

Engineers and scientist have shown that it 

is possible to reduce all necessary units 

to just seven base units. These base 

units are the core of the SI (le Système 

international d’unités). 

Many other units are based on combinations of the base units. For instance, 

force is measured in newtons, but 1 newton = (1 kilogram) X (1 metre per 

second per second). Such units, created by combinations of the base units 

are called derived units.

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World Metrology Day 20 May 2008

Metrology Measurement in Sport

Standard Units 

and the SI System 

SI Prefixes

Prefix Symbol Multiply by

Yotta- Y 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

Zetta- Z 1 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

 000 000 000 000 000

Exa- E 1 000 000 000 000 000 000

Peta- P 1 000 000 000 000 000

Tera- T 1 000 000 000 000

Giga- G 1 000 000 000

Mega- M 1 000 000

myria- My 10 000

kilo- k 1000

hecto- h 100

deka- da 10

deci- d 0.1

centi- c 0.01

milli- m 0.001

micro- u (mμ) 0.000 001

nano- n 0.000 000 001

pico- p 0.000 000 000 001

femto- f 0.000 000 000 000 001

atto- a 0.000 000 000 000 000 001

zepto- z 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 001

yocto- y 0.000 000 000 000 000 000 000 001

Quantity Unit Based on

Length metre Distance travelled by light in a specified fraction of a second

Mass kilogram Mass of the International prototype of the kilogram

Time second Frequency of a particular type of light

Electric current ampere Flow of electricity required to produce a specified force between conductors 

Temperature kelvin A fraction of the temperature of water at its triple point (where water, ice and watervapour co-exist)

Amount of substance mole Number of atoms in a specified mass of carbon

Luminous intensity candela Intensity of light-source of a particular colour

K-6195_NMISA_WMD_Fact sheet_SI U1 1 2008/04/25 02:15:1