The saga over the ‘overweight’ boxers at the Commonwealth Games earlier this week shows just how important proper calibration is when you’re trying to weigh anything accurately. In Delhi earlier this week, the boxing weigh-in was postponed by a day after a row over whether the reported weights were accurate or not. The Competition Manager, Lenni Gama, had originally claimed that the scales had been calibrated correctly, but even after a work-out and a sauna, the weights of the boxers were still higher than the teams’ own assessments of their boxers’ weights. Only when someone hit on the idea of weighing a known 50 kg weight (borrowed from the weightlifting team, maybe?) was the mystery unravelled – the 50 kg weight weighed in at a rather flabby 51.4 kg.
Buying your scales from a reputable supplier should ensure that your scales arrive properly calibrated so you don’t have these problems and that the scales remain accurate throughout their working life. Proper maintenance and ensuring the weighing device is not used on an uneven surface or subjected to wild swings in temperature and humidity (unless it’s designed for them) will also help.
Organisers of the 2012 Olympic Games will no doubt be keen to learn from the Delhi weigh-in debacle and avoid a similar situation. And you can be sure the competitors and teams will be paying close attention to any discrepancies they see, too. When athletes have trained hard for years for their brief moment of glory, no-one wants to see them robbed of it by a technicality that can be so easily avoided by buying good quality, reliable weighing equipment.
