Dog Triggers Photo Finish at Winter Olympics

Nazgul, named after the Ringwraiths from The Lord of the Rings, crosses the line during the women’s team cross-country event at the Winter Olympics.

Omega is responsible for the official timing of the Winter Olympics, including monitoring the finish line when athletes cross it within fractions of a second of one another. Today at the Games, however, it was a dog named Nazgul who triggered the cameras.

The two-year-old Czechoslovakian wolfdog escaped from his owners and found his way onto the women’s team cross-country event taking place in Tesero. As two of the athletes passed by, it caught Nazgul’s attention and he followed them to the finishing line.

One of the athletes, 21-year-old Croatian skier Tena Hadzic, wondered if she was “hallucinating” as she crossed paths with the dog on the homestretch. “I don’t know what I should do, because maybe he could attack me, bite me,” Hadzic told the press.

Nazgul’s owners, who are related to an event official and are staying anonymous, describe him as “stubborn, but very sweet.” Adding, “He was crying this morning more than normal because he was seeing us leaving — and I think he just wanted to follow us. He’s always looking for people.”

Fortunately, Nazgul’s unexpected appearance didn’t significantly impact the event, which was a preliminary qualifying round that the medal contenders had already completed. Hadzic, the Croatian, says that Nazgul likely did cost her a few seconds.

“It’s not that big a deal, because I’m not fighting for medals or anything big,” she says, per NPR. “But if that happened in the finals, it could really cost someone the medals, or a really good result.”

huge things happening at the Cross-Country Skiing pic.twitter.com/jPSS5kLvlw

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The camera that captured Nazgul crossing the line is Omega’s Scan’O’Vision Ultimage photofinish camera, capable of capturing up to 40,000 frames per second. It’s part of 130 tons of equipment that Swiss Timing, the technology firm that owns Omega, has brought to the Winter Games along with 300 timekeepers.

Speaking of bringing equipment to the Games, yesterday photographer Jeff Cable gave a peek into one of Canon’s gear rooms at the Olympics containing hundreds of bodies and lenses.

“Can you imagine how much money is sitting in this room?” Cable says. “It must be millions of dollars of cameras and lenses, with most of the value in the endless expensive lenses.”