DEVON ALLEN ROBBBED. .09999?

If you have the technology to confidently disqualify an athlete for breaking a thousandth of a second faster than the 1.0 threshold, why can't you just do that for breaking a thousandth of a second faster than the gun.

rojo, great piece; couple of comments:

1) can you get someone from WA on the record to comment on the situation?

2) What are the make and version of the FS systems used in Tokyo and other events listed?

It's a stupid rule unless it's easy to the eye...They never DQ distance guys that have happy feet at the start line

A medal contender thrown out for a fraction of a second... bio males competing in womens events... throw the whole championship away at this point. It's no wonder this is a third tier joke of a sport in the US.

This is the correct question but will they disclose this information?

Isn't that the problem? Everyone in the meet is an outlier. Everyone in the meet is capable of starting faster that 99% of people. To hold them to a standard based on average human performance is ridiculous.

Dude - did you not read the article Rojo linked on this blog where people took the time to analyze and even graph/chart reaction times of the 100m men and women and mens 110h where the extreme outlier year by a considerable margin just happens to be Eugene?

Furthermore nobody is surprised by the rule or wants to question it. They are questioning the accuracy of the readings from this meet which as a whole are so vastly different from any other championship they are beyond just "outlier" status.

I don't think they can though? I mean they could - they just better not tell anyone about it. Imagine coming out now and saying "yeah we found that the calibration actually was way off and now we've changed it for everyone but tough luck Devon, TyNia (Gaither), Julien (Alfred) - you guys were just unlucky enough to run before we figured this out".

Again I think back to all the issues with the sensitivity with the blocks since Hayward was reopened and this shouldn't be a shock. It's now all dependent on the officiating crew there and these guys aren't from the NCAA or USATF. As for your question? I absolutely could see that happening.

Pretty sketchy evidence to be saying someone was screwed with 99.9% certainty.

I think all charts in that post need to be looked at a lot more closely, and many other factors as well, before making bold and absolute conclusions like this.

Also, this statement -- "The odds that Eugene would show the average lowest reaction times in all three sprint events is miniscule – 1/13 x 1/13 x 1/13 or 0.05%" -- doesn't seem correct. It may be correct if all the years and events were truly random (equal chance of being the lowest), but they don't seem random all. Each graph shows a correlation between races in in various years. Like 2011, it seems, was a boon year for wanna-be false starters (highest reaction times in all three sprint events). Was the equipment even working in 2011? Who knows how many sprinters got jobbed out of medals by undetected false starters in 2011.

I'd get a real statistician to analyze if that "1/13 x 1/13 x 1/13 or 0.05%" is the correct way of viewing this (and I doubt it is), and if not, then I'd amend that 99.9% chance that Allen got screwed, which seems highly misleading (even with no stats, it seems highly misleading).

Based on the title my question is did they catch the culprit who robbed him?

Compare that technology with the technology that was considered for race walking to monitor when an athlete lifts both feet off the ground electronically. The present rule gives the judges the power to tell whether a competitor has lifted. The rule states the walker’s feet should never loose contact with the ground as visible to the human eye. This technology was never considered seriously.

And also get rid of those who made the false start rule. Replace them with some experienced athletes who have some proven common sense.

Sorry, but the sound "waves" are closer than 0.100 seconds. In standard conditions, the speed of sound is approx. 343 meters/sec. That equates to it taking sound waves 0.00291545 seconds to travel 1 meter. If the distance from the speaker to the athlete's ear is say, approx. 1.5m (5 feet), then the sound will take 0.0044 seconds or so to reach the ears of the athlete. That gives about another 0.0056 seconds for the athlete to not react sufficiently in order to not violate the 0.100 second threshold.

Huh? Time to re-enroll in a basic math class, with emphasis on decimals.

Devon Allen's DQ SHOULD be controversial. It's just plain wrong. And dumb. Really limited thinking on the part of rule makers and those who operate from the limits of the "logical" brain-mind.

For those who say, "A rule is a rule." and for those who believe there is a physiological limit to reaction time--Oh, and so the physical limit is immutable? So the four minute mile isn't possible? That's what the physiology books taught when Roger bannister was in medical school. In case don't know, Bannister was the first to break the four minute mile "barrier., when he was in medical school" And now the mile record is 3:43:14. The mile record has been steadily going down since that historic race in 1954. The do-gooders say they know where the limit is?

I saw my first track meet at Hayward field in 1952. I've seen many so-called barriers broken over the years. I remember when Perry O'Brien broke the impossible 60' shot put barrier and we recently watched Ryan Crouser throw 76' 8". I saw Les Steers do the first 7' high jump at a half time exhibition at an Oregon basketball game at Mac Court (the record is now 7'10 1/4"), ... I could go on and on. Simply look at the progression of any track and field record and then tell me you know where a limit is?

So, why have a rule about reaction time that results in a "false start?" Athletes train to get better and faster. Part of that is improving reaction time. Who are the folks (I censored "idiots") who arbitrarily decided .1 is the limit (or that there is a limit) and anyone who gets better than that can't play. Penalize an athlete for getting better? Seems pretty dumb to me, he says judgmentally…

The solution seems simple enough to me. Eliminate the reaction time false start rule. Give the official(s) authority to over rule the rule. Allow one false start. reverse the priority of technology over good old human common sense. Add some flexibility and make decisions with the intention of any rule as the priority, not an inflexible rule. Oh! This is how it used to be in the good old days, or as the younger folks say now, "Back in the day..."

People are more important than technology. People need to be running the technology, not the other way around.

The restitution expected is money, of course. 4 athletes were prevented from doing their job due to another company (Seiko?) not fulfilling their obligation and an undisclosed number of officials who knew about the problem and ignored it.

An apology is not nearly enough when you are talking about the biggest event of the year. It affects sponsorship for the next season and beyond.

If a lawsuit isn't filed I'll be disappointed for the athletes involved. Officials haven't even issued an apology yet, right?

That's not going to happen unless they can prove the equipment is faulty. At the minute, the discussion is that it's highly sensitive and that the rules need to change to reflect that. But as it stands, he broke the current rules. You can say it's only .001, the rules should be different, the officials should have used discretion. But everyone knew the rules and they were followed strictly. I don't see how anyone is legally liable in this situation. I also don't see the rules being changed on the fly. We might see something happen post-Eugene but this is just going to be something everyone has to live with.

You're also not going to get an apology as that would be an admission of failure by the officials.

I feel sorry for Holloway in all of this. He defended his title and bounced back from disappointment last year but he seems to be forgotten. There's no doubt in my mind that he would have beaten Allen, so I don't think the DQ affected the destination of the gold medal.

I agree that there shouldn't be a lawsuit but this is a big issue in the sport and should be addressed.

"He knew the rules and broke them" is a really stupid argument. Are you suggesting he should've waited for a bit after hearing the gun?