Fair or foul: Tshepiso Masalela DISQUALIFIED for celebration / pretending to shoot Habz on finish line. Noah Lyles watch out.

See, here's where we disagree.

One is a Nazi salute which is real and one is a finger pointed like a gun which is pretend. Sounds like are somebody who believes words are actual violence but then had no problem with real violence.

Taunting should not be a part of sports and the NFL agrees, as they penalize and fine athletes that taunt. Some of the argument has been that he should just be fined, but let the result stand because that is what the NFL does. But that is not the case, as the result of the play does not stand in the NFL. Unfortunately in our sport, there is only one result, so that is the result that needs to be redacted.

I'm not sure if youre joking..

The Noah situation is way worse, if you compare it to this one. In any case, its the same. Nuances like he have to walk directly up to someone, be a certain amount of meters from them, is ridiculous. Its the same and should be treated the same.

Regarding the finger across the neck, its way worse. Its always used to signal "you're dead" to someone, never about oneself, and in sports, a tad less serious obviously. So thats a fair comparison. Im ok with taunting as long as you dont touch or impede another athlete, and if youre OK with Noah, you should be OK with Masaela. If not, then its way to subjective and up for debate and impossible for athletes to comply with such vague rules.

Serious sports, whats a serious sport, NFL? WWE? Basketball? Anything not in the US?

Soccer/fotball? They allow way more, so let the biggest sport determine then..

And in any way. Why stop at this? Remove taunts, remove antics, remove trash talk, make em robots. Make it boring. Make it more American.

Why should anyone care what the NFL does?

I'm just glad to see that Habz Kessler was awarded the win. I hope it's a good omen for his outdoor season.

Having rewatched the face-on replay in slow motion I'm actually much happier with the DQ decision. Masalela's 'gun' hand actually hovers over Habz's right arm for the last two seconds of the race and Habz makes a huge movement to bat it away, as it is impeding the movement of his arm (kind of important at the end of a race). Habz perhaps even thinks the hand is going towards his face- remember they are running all out here and it's not normal to have a hand coming towards you from that angle in the final seconds. Given it came down to one thousandth of a second, it's not a stretch to say that the effort to bat Masalela's hand away may have altered the outcome of the race, particularly as this defensive movement likely altered the position of Habz's torso for the finish photo. So World Athletics rules on not deliberately 'impeding, jostling or obstructing' another athlete would actually apply here even without making this about sportsmanship, so it's a straightforward DQ.

Not quite. If a guy runs down the field and scores a TD while taunting the defender, the play stands. A penalty may be enforced on the following play.

1. Thats a different discussion, and far if impeding. If there is no impact on the result, it should be ignored.

2. No taunting, clear victory. So that would not possibly change the outcome of the race.

I'm going to stop engaging with you because you're not making any sense but just a final word to say that if “he would’ve won anyway” excused disqualification, then disqualification would be meaningless. Sports aren't won on hypotheticals. 'If he hadn't impeded Habz he would still have won so the victory should still stand' is ultimately the same logic as saying 'if he hadn't been DQ'd for stepping out of bounds he would have won' or 'if he didn't false start he would have won'.

"Given it came down to one thousandth of a second, it's not a stretch to say that the effort to bat Masalela's hand away may have altered the outcome of the race,"

No hand = no change in outcome of race

Masalela’s “gun” gesture was much more aggressive than Lyle’s pointing. I’m not a fan of any kind of showmanship. I think it’s obnoxious and unsportsmanlike. Let Barry Sanders be your model. Lyle’s didn’t deserve a dq, neither did Masalela. Both were idiotic.

Exactly. And there's a huge difference in celebrating and showing everyone how you premeditated being disrespectful to a fellow competitor. Low IQ is as low IQ does.

The problem with T&F is that the only real penalty is DQ, so the range of punishment goes from nothing to the death penalty (for that race). Football has loss of yardage or possession, basketball has technicals, hockey has the penalty box, etc. and it works because they are team sports and the penalties are graduated. Even in baseball, if a player is ejected, it just means a different player takes over that spot.

Maybe there could be a fine system, but unlike pro sports where everyone presumably is being paid well in T&F that's not the case. At USAs you could have Noah Lyles running against a high school kid whose part-time job is flipping burgers. Lyles could afford to pay all sorts of fines but the high school kid couldn't. It gets messy fast and you end up with a class system where the stars can afford to taunt and others can't.

Maybe T&F needs penalty times - like a 1% time deduction or 2% time deduction, etc. You could treat the results like wind-aided sprint times. But that still wouldn't be great because makes race times inaccurate and accurate objective times are one of the things that makes track great.

Anyway, if the choice is DQ or not, I say DQ in this case. There's good celebrating (see Ezekiel Kemboi) and there's being insulting to other competitors and that needs to be discouraged.

Yaa. I'm with your interpretation. While a simple gesture of triumph wouldn't be DQ-worthy, the way this was done to interfere with a competitor at that final stage of a very close race did impede. It's very hard to look at the line ignoring that invasion of space by a competitor just as you point out. Distraction from task and biomechanical inefficiency triggered - lol - by Masalela is impedance and may have affected the result. So for that reason a DQ is warranted. Then there's the sportsmanship aspect which compounds the foul.

IAAF should not encourage this behavior by oversight. There's no need for this.

Love this. The guy wants to mock his opponent? OK, take the DQ.

Maybe he will show a bit more class next time.

No, it’s a Roman salute which went out of favor after WWII obviously. But certain people like to keep bashing people over the head with crap about “Nazis”, to gain real and perceived “advantages”.

More hole than cheek.

imagine in any sport after you won, the game gets overturned, upon a hand jesture, of that nature.

track and field, and dare i say the fans who want to control behavior in ultra nazi style are a JOKE.

that's what it is, you suckers want control of the other guy, well beyond human norms.