As the picture editor at the Post-Dispatch who manages our sports coverage, the last two weeks of Olympic events have been a smorgasbord of great photography. On second thought, maybe with the games in Beijing I should say it’s more like an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet….

With the 13-hour time difference, I start each day working through our feeds from The Associated Press, McClatchy-Tribune and The New York Times photo services to build photo galleries for STLToday.com and collect images that might work in our daily coverage in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Among the themes I’ve been struck by during the Olympics by is the high-tech evolution of the games, both for the athletes and for the photographers covering their experiences. Swimmers are faster today both because of advanced training and high tech suits, while the new technology is mirrored for photojournalists with new digital cameras from Canon and Nikon that offer greater resolution and the production speed of digital imaging.

With today’s photo technology we’re able to have high quality images in St. Louis ready for use in the Post-Dispatch or on STLToday.com minutes after Michael Phelps wears a Speedo LZR suit during a record-setting race Beijing. No more processing film, making prints or waiting for the old AP drum transmitter to spin through four passes in 30 minutes to send a color image. In that amount of time today we’ve edited the images and copy, posted results and images online, finished the design of the newspaper page and sent it electronically to our printing plant in Maryland Heights.

To help visualize some of these changes, I went back through our files and pulled some frames from when the Olympics were here in St. Louis in 1904, and paired them with contemporary images from Beijing. The 1904 images are from our friends at the Missouri Historical Society and were last published in the Post-Dispatch as part of our special anniversary section commemorating the 1904 World’s Fair while the current work was made by photographers from The Associated Press.

100-METER FREESTYLE SWIMMING

1904: Swimmers await the starting gun for the 100-yard freestyle at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics, which took place on the World’s Fair Grounds in Forest Park. Zoltan de Halmay of Hungary turned in a winning time of 1:02.8. Photo courtesy Missouri Historical Society

2008: Australia’s Eamon Sullivan starts a heat of the men’s 100-meter freestyle during the swimming competitions in the National Aquatics Center at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Beijing, Tuesday, Aug. 12, 2008. Sullivan placed first in the heat. Itsuo Inouye | The Associated Press

An interesting aside: in St. Louis in 1904 Zoltan de Halmay of Hungary won swimming’s 100-meter freestyle event in 1:02.8, while in Beijing this year France’s Alain Bernard won the event in 0:47.21.

400-METER DASH

1904: Runners line up for the 400-meter race at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. The race was won by Harry Hillman of the New York Athletic Club. Photo courtesy Missouri Historical Society

2008: United States’ LaShawin Merritt crosses the finish line to win the gold in the men’s 400-meter final during the athletics competitions in the National Stadium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. David J. Phillip | The Associated Press

DIVING

1904: Dr. G.H. Sheldon of St. Louis won the fancy diving competition at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. Photograph by Jessie Tarbox Beals, courtesy Missouri Historical Society Photographs and Prints Collections

2008: China’s Chen Ruolin competes at the women’s 10-meter platform semifinals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics in Beijing, Thursday, Aug. 21, 2008. Andrew Medichini | The Associated Press

MARATHON

1904: Lentauw (left) and Yamasini of South Africa came to the World’s Fair as concessionaires and ended up competing in the 1904 St. Louis Olympic marathon with 29 other runners. They finished 9th and 12th, respectively, with no marathon experience. Photo courtesy Missouri Historical Society

2008: Liz Yelling (left) and Paula Radcliffe of Britain hug after the women’s marathon during track and field competitions in the National Stadium at the 2008 Beijing Olympics Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008. Anja Niedringhaus | The Associated Press

WEIGHTLIFTING

1904: US weightlifter Frederick Winters of New York City finished second in the all-around dumbbell contest at the 1904 St. Louis Olympics. Photo courtesy Missouri Historical Society

2008: Khadzhimurat Akkaev of Russia celebrates after lifting 217 kilograms in the clean and jerk of the men’s 94 kg, Group B, of the weightlifting competition at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Sunday, Aug. 17, 2008. Akkaev finished first in his group. Andres Leighton | The Associated Press