Seconds of a track performance are published to the hundreth however timing systems store data to the thousandths and beyond.
What I mean is 9.58 might mean 9.579999999999
Did Seiko publish a time? I am curious!
Photo Finish:
http://berlin.iaaf.org/gallery/photofinish/photo=M_100_f_1/popup.html?iframe
Results:
dat shoe
I know we always round up, but according to the photo it's closer to 9.57 than it is to 9.58. If I had to guess something like 9.572 probably. 9.58 is the official time, no need to go any further than that.
9.58 almost certainly means 9.57x, because times are always rounded up.
It is actually a fairly sloppy job of reading the image. If you look carefully his torso is beyond the line. Reading it more accurately might have given a time of 9.570 = 9.57
Yes we can reliably measure time to the 1/1000th of a second but for the measurement to be accurate the length of the race must also be incredibly precise. Even at 12 m/s an elite sprinter travels only 12 mm in 1/1000th of a second. In order to list times and records to the thousandth track measurements would need to be accurate to the millimeter.