I know it’s sad what’s happened with Bolt, but I think he won’t repeat FS anymore. My main reason is that it prevents gamesmanship. The race starts when the gun goes off and not before. Guessing the gun is cheating. In swimming no problem. Train for it, wait for the gun sound and run! How many times Asafa Powell FS? He ran many races
Should they also remove the “one-step on the line and out” rule in the 200? What if Bolt stepped on the line in the heats? IMO, that’s a harder one not to violate than waiting for the gun to start.
You can step on the outside line not the inside one because you are shortening the distance.
I wonder what the fastest man in the world thinks of the false start rule.
Diack is a dope. Most of the IAAF professionals were actually happy with the old start rule dating back to 1908. Off the record they would confide this to be fact. I prefer the one break and a warning to the entire field, brought in a few years ago. But no-start is no brains. And gamesmanship will always be part of the game. What about ther Blake Shake? He says he always does that! Why! Kick him out too? Why not just cancel the 100 altogether. Diack back to Senegal where you can rule happily ever after. Sadly while he remains the choice of least controversy for IAAf president, the Council will comply with whatever are his wishes. Including this no-break rule. It stinks.
Lets see what kind of pressure usoc puts on the iaaf. what happens if bolt gay and powell all fs. I see a riot. We need to make sure that dirty dick diack is the target
The previous rule of one break and a warning to the entire field is unfair. Why entire field should be warned for one unlucky who FSed? Then bring the old rule when every sprinter can FS once, so it’s fair, but you know it’s not the best choice. Now Bolt FSed and all starts complaining “it’s bad for fans, it’s bad for entire track and field and so on”.If most of the fans sees only Bolt so I think it’s media problem while not giving enough attention to other athletes. For sure many fans didn’t know who the Blake was. About Blake’s Shake, so if he always does that he should get exception rule b/c he always does that and he can’t do anything about it? If he always does that so even with the previous FS rule he would be DQied? Please tell me why in swimming this rule isn’t a problem?
“Bolt, who had not spoken at length since his disqualification, resisted calling for a change in the false-start rule, which has been under increased scrutiny. Bolt also declined to blame Blake, whose left leg twitched before Bolt’s false start.”
Bolt is the darling of IAAF. He is NOT going to criticise them. He and his management know that if they “behave” IAAF will be there for him many years after he retires until the day he dies. Carl Lewis eventually understood that, like Michael Johnson eventually did also. To be embraced by IAAF is a sinecure.
But that doesn’t make the false start rule good for the sport.
Certainly TV pays the bills so they must be accommodated but athletics is just prostituting itself like some cheap whore rolling over for TV in the present circumstances.
Either false start rule was preferable to the current situation. But the one-for-the-field meets TV more than halfway.
If you cannot comprehend what is happening here then lets just agree to disagree.
Having walked away from both coaching and officiating at national level I comprehend what is happening, yes I disagree with you.
One reason might be that reaction off the blocks has about as much significance in swimming sprints as it does to the final outcome of the track 400m race. That is, no correlation at all. But in a track race that can last as little as 10sec, reaction time can decide medals.
While the IAAF legislature is unlikely to be influenced by what is discussed here, in my view, the false start rule must be individual to each sprinter on the track.
The only reason the rule was created in the first place, and then modified, was due to factors of time and, in my view, last year’s modification of the rule was erroneous long before Bolt DQ’d the other day.
Throwers get X amount of attempts regardless if they foot or sector foul every one, same logic for jumpers; however, they’re also lucky if they get enough air time for someone not to miss it if they go to the fridge for a beer.
As a former HS track coach and huge fan of the sport I’m willing to sit around as long as it takes to reset the field and see a good race and maybe the TV people who are slaves to their cruel masters might be willing to show more than a highlight blip of the field events during the interim.
Not sure if I remember correctly, but Charlie preferred either the original rule or the current one, nothing in between. Goes with his training philosophy, no? 
If someone could confirm it?
I totally agree with him.
The rules are there to see that no athlete is given an unfair advantage. Every athlete should be given the same opportunity.
A few years ago in the Modesto Relays there was a 100m with, I think, 3 false starts. The first one they never got around to charging. The second was charged to the field, and the third was an ejection.
There was a similar situation in US Nationals a few years ago, where some claimed there was a FS by Gatlin that was never charged or called (don’t remember which).
I think I prefer where a guy who does not go around misusing the competition rules, and this could be Lemaitre as well as Bolt or Gay, is simply granted some slack by the refs. In the case this time, they could have said something like “We can’t tell if someone else jumped to cause him to FS, so we’re not going to charge it.”
I do see that, far more than WC, the Olympics are on a tight schedule and there simply isn’t room for what I saw in Modesto, or the more famous case involving Linford.
50m times for the different strokes range from 20 to 25 seconds, which makes them pretty comparable to a 200m race on the track.
How about LaShawn Merritt’s reaction time in the 400m finals? I think someone on here pointed out that he ran for 0.13 less seconds than James in the race, yet still lost. They way I look at it, every hundredth matters in a sprint.
A SOUTH AFRICAN PERSEPCTIVE
Wrecked by silly rules
September 4 2011 at 03:13pm
By Mzimase Mgebisa
Comment on this story
Bolt_DQ1
REUTERS
A view of the start as Usain Bolt prematurely leaped from the blocks, resulting in him being disqualified.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, one cannot but bemoan the apathy that sport suffers from Tom, Dick and Harriet ruining sport.
Fast forward to August 23 at the London Olympic Stadium … 80 000 paying fans salivating at the prospect of witnessing the marquee event of the Olympic Games … the race to determine the fastest man in the world.
Usain Bolt, Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell, Yohan Blake, Kim Collins and any three others line up in front of hundreds of millions of television viewers – if not a billion – and the gun sound is beaten by one of the competitor’s by a 100th of a second; and is disqualified.
That could easily be one of the three names the entire sporting world is keen on seeing at the finish line – Bolt, Gay or Powell.
With all due respect to the rest, including the “default” world champion, Blake, the interest in this race is not in the underdogs, though those do make for a good story once in a while; the interest is on the top three athletes as mentioned above.
Then rewind to last Sunday when Bolt, who had cruised into the final of the men’s 100m in Daegu, South Korea, was disqualified because of a stupid rule.
With so much invested in sport through blood, sweat, gold and emotion; it’s normal for any event or game to have a “caution” – in many sporting codes referred to as a yellow card – to warn everybody.
The many theories advanced, at the top of which is that the rules were amended in 2010 by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) because television fans were bored of the many false starts that take place in sprint races is patently flawed.
In every scenario, there ought to be an endeavour for natural justice to take place.
An athlete’s career can be ruined by nerves or by adrenalin because of the current rules in athletics.
One is not naive as to say that there were no athletes that attempted to cheat the system by staging a false start to neutralise the opposition because the entire line-up would on a caution as per the 2003 rules amendment.
However, it is the responsibility of those formulating the rules to always assume that the greater majority are in it for the right reasons.
Before 2003, disqualification occurred only after the same athlete false-started twice – which is logical and seems fair.
Thus the laws should be designed to benefit the majority.
There is no way Bolt would have wanted to cheat the field because he is the fastest man in the world, holding world and Olympic records at 100m and 200m.
The fact that Bolt manned up to say it was his fault still does not disguise the fact that the laws as they are are flawed. As commendable as it is for Bolt to accept the consequences of his eagerness, it still does not exonerate the IAAF.
Many a dream can be left wretched by rules that are designed to take the fun out of athletics.
It is with trepidation that one thinks of the constant lack of direction that engulfs many a South African sporting federation which handicaps the country from taking world-changing positions when they meet their peers at international federations.
Where were the laws of natural justice when Oscar Pistorius was deprived of a place at the 4 x 400-metre relay final having helped South Africa qualify for the spot in the first place.
This perennial failure to apply fairness irks me.
If Pistorius was not good enough to feature in the final, the head honchos at Athletics South Africa (ASA) should not have put him in a situation where he raced in the qualifiers.
You would swear that Leonard Chuene’s shadow hovers above those running the sport, despite the fact that they were newly elected.
It’s as if Chuene’s shadow keeps saying: “I’m watching you, come on now, keep cocking it up so that people may realise I was not the worst of the bunch … come on now, embellish the perverse stupidity that defined my presidency”.
How else do you explain the lack of logic and empathy that permeates the corridors of power at the national athletics association?
Cry the beloved country.
How can that be cheating? Its a gamble…just like Blackjack, slots and casino play. Do you get kicked out of a casino if you win a bunch of money?
If you are going to have the one false start rule, then any time after the gun goes off should be a legal start…no reacting 0.10 seconds after the gun.
I do not disagree with that. Maybe there is scientific evidence but the same also said we had reached the limits of human speed. Under 9.6 is not humanly possible.
Lo Hill! Long time no see! What an interesting idea.
I like the allowance of trying to anticipate the gun. If you go before the gun goes off (time 0), you get tossed. If you go at any point after the gun goes off, you get to run. That said, it’s not at all practical. The starter’s job becomes much more difficult, and people without electronic blocks have little way off accurately testing. “It looked like he left before everyone else, but I think it was after I pulled the trigger…”. It also changes rules which makes it hard to keep WR’s continuous.
Not being allowed to move for part of a race, while the timer is running, doesn’t make much sense.