Why don't sprints use a "Christmas tree" lights like drag racing for a countdown to the start?

make them all wear ferrous based shoes with a strong magnet in the starter block mechanism - nobody can go until the magnet releases.

jimmymango wrote:

The starter could call the runners to their mark, then when he's ready to call "Set", instead of yelling, he'd press a button, the program would call "Set" over a speaker, then the gun would be fired electronically after a specified interval.

Um, yeah wrote:

I see you, like many others on this thread, haven't actually read the rules.

After 'Set', the gun is not to be fired until all athletes are actually set. Your automated system does not account for that.

That doesn't matter. If they're not set then to heck with them.

I agree with having electronic commands, on your marks - specific interval, get set - specific interval, go. Anyone who false starts is out. Anyone who gets left behind gets left behind, period.

Everyone should know in advance what the intervals are going to be, and they need to always be the same.

Clell Adams wrote:

make them all wear ferrous based shoes with a strong magnet in the starter block mechanism - nobody can go until the magnet releases.

What about cattle-prod-like electrodes imbedded into the footpads of the blocks, wired into the gun. When the gun fires the circuit goes dead and the athletes have a fair start. If they FS before the gun and with a live circuit, they get a charge. Higher level of competition yeilds more voltage...lowest setting is for middle school girls and be like sticking your tounge on a 9-volt battery. The highest setting reserved for OG and WC would be electric chair strength.

Um yeah: That's the best explanation I've seen yet, but still, having a countdown ping or beep wouldn't necessitate solo time trials. It just lessen the chance at falst starts. And a false start would be more inexcuseable with a synchronous countdown beep.

3 2 1 go wrote:

Um yeah: That's the best explanation I've seen yet, but still, having a countdown ping or beep wouldn't necessitate solo time trials. It just lessen the chance at falst starts. And a false start would be more inexcuseable with a synchronous countdown beep.

It wouldn't necessitate solo time trials, just that you might as well run solo time trials since you have fundamentally changed one component of the race.

Having a countdown ping or beep with a set interval would lead to the removal of the skill of reacting to the gun.

Ever notice how much sprinters practice their starts? They would no longer need to work at reacting as fast as possible to a semi-random command but rather would be able to start their reaction at a known time.

If that's what people want, then they must acknowledge that it is a significant change to the rules and the nature of the event and not just a little tweak to the process.

Extrapolating, would this overhaul be just for the 100m? Just for the sprints? Or all track events?

Would they mandate this change for all meets of all levels or would athletes up to NCAAs have to deal with the existing rule and then when they made it to the Olympics or the Diamond League have to transition to a whole new methodology?

Not bad

I'd go for using a rifle with live ammo

Then pick off the false starters, that would stop that problem and chances are take out a doper at the same time

Clean Coal wrote:

Blip... Blip... Blip... BEEP!

It wouldn't change anything with regard to reaction, they are still reacting to a noise.

Are you joking? Have you ever started a sprint? Have you even WATCHED a sprint?

Everyone would run faster with this method. Like the above dude said, if the beeping is on a set interval, the athletes will start consistently quicker after the beep.

Plus if you press A immediately after the second beep, you're going to get a huge boost right out of the gate. If you press it too soon, though, you'll spin out and never catch up. Unless you get a mushroom or lightning bolt in the first couple seconds of the race.

because sprinters are not rednecks

I admit. I'm not a sprinter and never have been. But it seems like "reaction time" as part of the event is unnecessary, kind of like how baseball traditionalists don't want a computerized strike zone or video review of close calls simply because it removes the human element from the game.

Seems to me that sprinting should be all about the fastest sprinter. They don't award gold, silver, and bronze for best reaction time.

3 2 1 go wrote:

I admit. I'm not a sprinter and never have been. But it seems like "reaction time" as part of the event is unnecessary, kind of like how baseball traditionalists don't want a computerized strike zone or video review of close calls simply because it removes the human element from the game.

Seems to me that sprinting should be all about the fastest sprinter. They don't award gold, silver, and bronze for best reaction time.

Whether or not you think it is 'unnecessary' doesn't change the fact that it currently is a part of the event and gold, silver and bronze medals are often decided by less than the difference in respective reaction times.

With a defined countdown time, every athlete would know exactly when the gun would go (or the light go green or the beep go 'beeeep') and so reaction time should essentially be 0.00 seconds since they would be able to properly anticipate the start.

Presently, where they have to react to the sound of the gun, reaction times range from 0.10 to 0.20 or more seconds. If we remove those reaction times, performances are going to drop by that much more time.

An athlete who currently puts up a 10.14 time would then be clocked as a sub 10 sprinter. A Usain Bolt 9.58 world record might then be 9.44.

Your analogy about removing the 'human element' is faulty in that the technology you reference in baseball isn't changing the fundamental rule, just providing a better way to follow it.

It's just the same as the electronic blocks which provide the technological capacity to determine whether a false start was committed or FAT which determines the time run with greater precision. Neither change the basic rule about whether you can start before you hear the gun or not.

J.R. wrote:

Everyone should know in advance what the intervals are going to be, and they need to always be the same.

I can't believe a group of people who are supposed to have some knowledge of track are honestly having a conversation. This is like my old secretary thinking that you should get double points for not touching the rim when shooting a basket.

The countdown OBVIOUSLY takes reaction time out of the equation, making the event completely different. How can you possibly compare this to FAT? Who did FAT change an entire element of the race and training?

Morons.

I don't know why they don't do it more like horse racing. Have some little gates or barricades at the starting line that open up. No chance for a false start.

If the best they can do is what happened in NY, with a big chunk of the field being disqualified and the event being dragged out forever so the final race isn't even shown on TV, then I say get rid of the reaction time element.

No one watches sprints because they want to see fast reaction times or countless do-overs because of false starts. They watch sprints because they want to see people run fast.

Just because they have always done something that way isn't a good reason to keep doing it, especially when track is hurting for fans and TV viewers and the 100m is probably the premier track event. If the 100m isn't worth watching, then the rest of track is also hurt.

If you look at how the records for sprints have dropped over time, I disagree that the change would be that drastic. The changes in shoes, from cinder tracks, adding starting blocks, modern starting systems, and FAT, have all altered the event in ways that have measurably reduced sprint times.

Things like FAT and automatically detecting false starts have both eliminated the kind of arbitrary human element that variable timing between set and the gun cause, and some kind of countdown would just be another step in that direction.

atrrunner wrote:

Wouldn't guys try to anticipate the gun/light/beep and false start even more then?

A better thread is how the hell did professional sprinters run before they were told to run, and DQ themselves out of their whole purpose at the meet. Sorry, unsympathetic spindly distance runner here.

This is right. It would result in more false starts. It would be all about anticipating the beep, and someone will get it wrong.

The start is part of the race, being able to react fast is part of being a good sprinter.

Just because you're scared that some huge black guy (or Lemaitre) you want to fornicate with might not be allowed to race because he's too stupid to wait for the gun, doesn't mean that they should change the rules.

It's a simple rule. Hear the gun and go. Go before you hear the gun and you're out. Could they make it anymore straightforward?

trixienewbie wrote:

I don't know why they don't do it more like horse racing. Have some little gates or barricades at the starting line that open up.

You seriously don't know why?

Are you wanting the gates just for the 100m? Just for males or for females too? The 110m/100m hurdles? What about the 200m? The 400m? How would you set up your gates for the staggered starts?

Would you mandate these gates for sprints at all levels or just the Olympics and Diamond League? Would every high school hosting a low-key track meet have to setup and run one of these gates systems?

If you don't make it a part of the basic rules, then how would you compare times from a meet run with gates and another run without gates? Would you have the world record run from gates and the world record run the traditional way?

What feedback have you had from any sprinter, whether high schooler or Olympic calibre about their interest in having such gates?

NCAA has had the zero false start rule for several years. How often has the issue of false starts been raised in that context?