Courtesy: Washington University Athletics
ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Director of Athletics Anthony J. Azama has announced Washington University in St. Louis has partnered with Nevco and Swiss Timing to bring a state-of-the-art video board, LED scoreboard and timing system to Millstone Pool, home of the WashU men’s and women’s swimming and diving teams.
“We are excited the friends of our premier Swimming & Diving program helped address a need that will impact the experience for our current and future student-athletes and recreation,” said Azama.
The video board will span 8’3″ in height and 12’6″ in width, highlighted by a full color LED video display. The old scoreboard, which was installed in 2004, was 5’2″x 8’2″ with single color red dot matrix display.
Founded in 1934 and headquartered just 60 minutes from WashU in Greenville, Ill., Nevco is the largest privately-held scoreboard manufacturer in the world with over 100,000 installations worldwide.
The timing system will include touch pads mounted on the wall in each swimmer’s lane that registers a touch of between 1.5 and 2.5 kg anywhere on the pad’s surface. This amount of pressure eliminates “ghost touches” resulting from water movement.
Swiss Timing is part of Swatch Group which includes brands: Omega, Longines, Tissot, Harry Winston amongst others. They were the first official Olympic Timer in 1932 Los Angeles games, and are official timing partner of Summer Olympic competitions since 1996.
“We are so thankful for the support of our program,” said WashU head swimming and diving coach Brad Shively. “This is a tremendous system and will provide quality timing and messaging for years to come. As always, we are so proud to be a part of the best sports and recreation program in the country!”
WashU Swimming and Diving returns home to host the WashU Invitational on Friday, Jan. 11 at 5 p.m., followed by a dual meet with McKendree University on Saturday, Jan. 12 at Noon.