Dead heat (racing)

A dead heat is a rare situation in various racing sports in which the performances of competitors are judged to be so close that no difference between them can be resolved. The result is declared a tie and the competitors are awarded a joint ranking. Dead heats can occur in both head-to-head races and competitions where competitors race sequentially and are ranked by finishing time.

Photo finishes have been a long-standing method of resolving outcomes too ambiguous to be distinguished by the naked eye. Improvements in technology, including digital super-slow motion replay and pressure-sensitive digital timers, have increased precision in resolving dead heats. Consequently, dead heats are declared less often than they once were.

The Oxford English Dictionary attributes the term to horse racing. Meets formerly had the same horses run several "heats" in a day, with victors being decided by the total number of wins. A heat which had no clear single winner was discounted from these tallies and was therefore "dead".

Dead heats are very rare, and situations with three (or more) competitors in a dead heat are exceptionally so. The frequency of dead heats varies between sports, depending on the typical variance in performances and the precision of the technology available. The use of the photo finish, first introduced in horse racing in second quarter of the 20th century, notably decreased the number of dead heats. Both of the two recorded quadruple dead heats in horse racing occurred in England in the 1850s.

Swimming has a relatively high number of dead heats because, under FINA rules (which includes Olympic events), positions are based on race timings which are limited in precision to hundredths of a second; this is despite the availability of technology that could provide further precision. The reason for this is that the length of lanes can vary by up to 3 centimetres (1.2 in), with lower-precision timing compensating for the possible differences between the distances competitors have travelled.

Occasionally racers will try to deliberately engineer a dead heat. Twin distance runners H. Ross Hume and Robert H. Hume became known during the mid-1940s as the "dead heat twins" for their practice of finishing their races hand-in-hand in intentional efforts to share victory. At the 2002 United States Grand Prix auto racing teammates Rubens Barrichello and Michael Schumacher attempted to tie for first place, however Barrichello was adjudicated to have won by 0.011 seconds.

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Wikipedia