You guys are amazing.
What happened was going to happen eventually once that stupid No False Start rule went down.
I hope that this regrettable episode can get that rule killed in time for London.
From Tyson’s twitter:
the wink was for kim collins caus people seem to call him old but his legs look young to me
Very happy for Kim.
RB34, it’s perfectly reasonable. Now, the speculations going on now in this thread are sometimes out of this world and I don’t care about why etc., but I looked another time at the run and I think Usain is a bad actor. I know everyone at the end of the run thanks god, partners, children, everyone wants to end war and poverty and so we don’t know why everyone is still going on, but believing that it is pretty naive. Points: he started half an hour earlier (if you are not good at staging things you do something like that), he took off the shirt after 1 seconds (first thing you think about, no?), the look on his face, the pic of one of the other finalist next to him smiling one sec after the bad start. Bad actors when they want to act are just bad. So, I’m with N2.
It’s of course unnecessary to write that maybe I’m totally wrong.
Brings back memories of when I coached Little Aths, everytime one of the kids won by a decent margin something was amiss.
Start running when the gun goes, pretty simple. If you don’t you’re not reacting to the gun, your anticipating and you should be kicked out IMO.
Bolt also false started in the semis of the 2009 WC, but the new rule didn’t apply back then. Same scenario as this time: He was working on hist start which had not been that good all season, anticipated the gun and false started. The only difference was that he wasn’t DQ’ed back then and we got to see him run 9.58 in the final.
I went to the youtube videos and timed the starter and Bolt. For the starter, I have 1.69 after set for the semi and 1.68 for the final. Very consistent, which allows one to guess the gun. For Bolt in the final I saw movement at 1.56. On careful analysis, it looks like he was trying to time the starter, and just barely missed it.
Maybe he “blew his wad in the prelims” as Charlie once said about Asafa and really didn’t have it. So if you guess right, great; Otherwise FS gives a excuse rather than a loss to Blake? The loss in appearance money for losing could have been sizeable.
Truly a disappointing spectacle, but such is track and life. Sometimes things go right sometimes they don’t. It’s just weird how we get these gaps like in 2003, and now again. What a boring final.
Haha, Asafa must now be crying that he got “injured” (he’s only injured in the head IMO) when he shit his pants yet again before a major competition.
Overall I’m just sick of everybody avoiding everybody during the season, it’s a sad show sprinting has become.
I agree, it’s sad to see Bolt can’t be a champion losing too, not good for the sport at all. His antics after the DQ were really immature. Grow up Usain.
This rule has now been in effect at the highest level for well over 3 years. It was relatively smooth sailing for the first few years and now we have had one of the first big casualties.
The rule is fine. Maybe we need to be thinking isn’t this great that another competitor had Bolt thinking he needed to get out fast.
It simply shows that you can’t just turn up to a major with doubts. It has happen to a number of athletes already Obuguru, Hooker and now Bolt. Maybe this is just the kick of the butt these athletes required…so rather than harping on Bolt what about yohan’s 9.93 into that wind!!! Now thats impressive. Turn that wind around and we may have been looking at 9.6s!
Now that indicates just what shape he turned up in!!
agreed
Maybe he reacted to a gun being fired on a grassy knoll?
I, too, was impressed with that time run into that strong of a headwind. Many fans only see the time but when you consider the conditions, that’s an excellent performance.
The new rule was applied in January 2010. This is the first major championships (unless you want to count Commonwealth Games) at which the new rule was applied, and after two days of competition three high-profile athletes have already been DQ’ed.
He knew he had to beat yohon out the blocks…
Yup… I agree. Something is not right. I’ll say this though Usain needs to get some acting lessons. I mean if your going to act devastated at least make it believable… I dont really think he wanted to be there. I dont think any of the top guys wanted to go IMHO… And WTF false starts in a marathon too? Ridiculous…
Anyone else noticed that Bailey also FS’d?
http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/3043/vlcsnap2011082818h23m10.png
My initial reaction after watching was one of extreme disappointment. Instantly I thought, “Damn the current false start rule.” But as I’ve thought about it over the day, it is the current rule and has been for a a little while now. In sports, a rule is a rule. This is not a subjective matter either: You’re out if you move before the gun goes off. The winner of the race is the guy who gets to the line first, provided that he starts at some point after the gun. That’s that. This isn’t like American Football where there are various degrees of pass interference, holding, and unnecessary roughness. This is cut and dry. While it’s extremely unfortunate that the fastest human in the world’s history did not race, he did get a chance, and he himself messed that up. I am not happy that Bolt got DQ’d; I feel for any athlete who has put in the time and work to be at the top of their game. But I am happy to see that the officials of track and field gave no special treatment to an athlete – even one who is the fastest man in the world. While some may say that this is a low point for the sport, I’ve found the silver lining (at least for myself) in that the rules of competition were put ahead of an individual. If the fallout of today’s event results in a change in the rule, I fear that one could interpret it as an athlete being put ahead of the sport. Today’s 100m final was not created simply for Usain Bolt; it was created to pit the world’s 8 fastest men against each other in a race. Bolt qualified and therefore had a chance to win. He false started and was disqualified on a clear-cut rule. The men lined up again. Yohan Blake won the race and is the 2011 World Champion in the 100m.
I don’t know if I never payed attention to this before and some sprinters have always been doing it, but it really caught my attention how far up to blocks Blake placed his feet, like an inch and a half or two inches above the ground. I believe I also noticed another sprinter placing his feet this far up, or maybe it was him in the heats. Is this recommendable at all? I assume the goal is to create and even deeper initial angle … but I’d be scared of the blocks flying out of place, even more with an athlete with Blake’s mass and strength.
Block pedals are bigger.
Ato Bolden predicted something like this needing to happen in order to serve as a catalyst to get the rule tossed.
As soon as the rule went into action last year I thought it was a joke. Of all reasons to be disqualified from a competition the powers that be decide to direct their focus to what amounts to a tactical error. What’s next:will NFL players be kicked out of a game for jumping off-sides, will MLB players be kicked out of a game for getting caught base steeling… it’s completely absurd.
I state this because more than one source has stated that the reason the rule was created in the first place was to relieve big television from the apparent “agony” of waiting for the field to reset after a false start and lengthening the air time.
As I stated in another thread regarding Ohuruogu, it’s ridiculous to jump on a race that is not decided by the start. The 100m, on the other hand, very well may be and the start plays a decidedly significant factor in the race outcome. In any case, I sure hope the rule gets tossed for all events.