No False Start rule

[Charlie_Francis]

@rainy.here

I wouldn’t be comfortable being the starter with the new false start rule in a non-championship meet. With big payments already having been made (presumably), that would be a high pressure job.

Out of curiosity, can the starter call a false start but after reviewing the data, charge a false start to neither the field nor an individual? Basically, can they indirectly say “I screwed up by firing the gun again”? Is the system automated to fire again after a RT<0.100 in a big meet?

The reason I bring this up is the history of indoor meets in Toronto in my day, when the American “guests” would deliberately false start and, if called back, do it again, knowing they wouldn’t get kicked out. As a result, hand timed WRs were tied or broken with obvious FSs.
One time in Hamilton, when called back after a blatant flyer, Mel Pender turned on the hapless starter and shouted: “You just did that cause I’m black!” This intimidated the starter enough to let him get away with it the next time. Just total bullshit all the way around.
Joe Young, the 76 Olympic starter came in and kicked out a miscreant in the Toronto indoor meet and was banished from future games by the meet director because of the cost and loss of a record.

[John]

@Dazed

If you make first false start a DQ you have already removed any incentive to anticipate the gun.

and that’s a bad thing?

[ntr]

@John

and that’s a bad thing?

I don’t think he said it was bad. I thought he was saying that the no false start rule would stop people from trying to anticipate the gun and they would instead rely on their reaction to the gun. This in turn would make having a minimum allowable reaction time less important since everyone would be reacting to the gun and not anticipating it.

[John]

@ntr

I don’t think he said it was bad. I thought he was saying that the no false start rule would stop people from trying to anticipate the gun and they would instead rely on their reaction to the gun. This in turn would make having a minimum allowable reaction time less important since everyone would be reacting to the gun and not anticipating it.

ahhh, makes sense thanks.

[rainy.here]

@nineofhearts

I don’t really know much about swimming. Is there a higher threshold? Reaction times as stated in the above article are 0.7xs, which would obviously be a false start in athletics.

I think you’re off a decimal place here. The swimming times were things like 0.75 seconds. Track times are things like 0.15 seconds.

Swimming reaction times of 0.75 seconds makes question how that is being measured. There is no way it’s taking elite swimmers 3/4 of a second to begin their movement. Perhaps it’s 0.75 until they are clear from the “blocks”.

[MSO]

Lezak went 46.06, and the world record is 47.24. The only difference, as far as I can tell, is reaction time (you’re not already moving or anything like that, like you are in track).

Even if he was actually faster in the water than the world record, and I am pretty close to certain that he was, that difference is huge.

I understand .04 and .06. I don’t understand .38 (on a relay leg) and .75. I am sure there is a reason, or Olympic swimmers wouldn’t have those numbers, but I do not understand why it happens.

[00Scoots]

Isn’t the .75 for the swimmers the block clearance time and not the reaction time? Thats what I gathered from the article, “Phelps’s reaction time - the time between the sound of the gun and when he left the block”

[ASheaff]

Standard reaction times for swimmers are from starting signal to when the feet leave the blocks, hences times in the range of .60-.80.

In relays, the reaction time is calculated as the time from when the swimmer in the water touches the wall to when the swimmer on the block is no longer in contact with the block. This way you get ‘reaction times’ on the order of 0.0x. These aren’t actually reaction times. This also accounts for how relay splits can be significantly faster than the world record, as the reaction time is removed (0.7x vs. 0.0x).