[Bell Historians] Olympic Bell

[Dickon Love]

> Not sure how Alan Taylor can say that Wiggins didn't ring the bell - the 
> movement of the rope and "clapper" seemed directly co-ordinated to me

Alan is right.  At the top of the rope that he was pulling was a short piece
of bungey cord fixed to the top of the clapper staple arrangement.  His
pulling had to be closely coordinated with a person standing just out of
camera view who, at the appropriate moment, pushed a small green button
which activated a pneumatic ram, fed by a conventional air compressor and
which pushed the clapper rapidly from the at rest position to strike the
bell.  During testing a careful note was made of the time interval between
pressing the button and the bell striking.  In fact two pneumatic rams were
in place with switching through a microprocessor so that in the unlikely
event of one ram failing, a second ram would come in to play and the bell
would still strike.

DrL