If Devon Allen ran a race and his time was xx.09999, his time would get rounded up to xx.10?
Why didn't the IAAF round up Allen's reaction just the same?
The automatic reaction time false start is a horrible rule. If the starter doesn't see the false start, it doesn't happen, in my book. This ridiculous rule also took Tynia Gaither out of the women's 100m semis.
F you IAAF!
Agreed but let's be honest...those old starters can hardly see as is. Nice the sport is giving the officials something to do in retirement though. Nothing like abusing power time and time again while forgetting people are there for the athletes not officials.
No need to insult officials because you don't like an outcome. Your POV is actually an excellent reason why this rule is a good one and should remain in place: there is no human discretion involved.
If indeed the timing system is mis-calibrated for this meet, then that's on the meet organizers and/or USATF/IAAF.
Anybody with a rudimentary understanding of statistics, which apparently does not include World Athletics decision makers, would have realized that the false-start system jumped the shark. It was eliminating runners below a 0.10 mark when multiple runners were posting marks of 0.10x and 0.11x. That's not how error detection systems work. They can't distinguish between "just this side of correct" and "just the other side of correct." They must be constructed with barriers.
Thus, if the official DQ level is 0.10, then those who constructed the system must think that nobody could legally start in less than, say, 0.12 seconds. Build in a 0.02 buffer, to acknowledge that 0.12 is merely a signpost and that there can be no hard-coded signal for reactions that occurred before the gun and those that occured after the gun, and that's how you get 0.10.
So when runner after runner is posting start times of less than 0.12, you screwed the chicken. They didn't all anticipate the gun by a tiny fraction of a second. There's no way at all that happened. What that means is your system is broken. Because if it worked correctly then false starts would look like this.
0.155
0.153
0.144
0.139
0.137
0.131
0.126
0.122
0.94 - DQ
But that is not what is happening out there. The false starts are much closer to the average. As an earlier post noted, the standard deviations with the false starts when compared with the legal starts aren't even statistically signficant, that is how close the margin is.
If the World Athletics engineers built a bridge, it would collapse the first time that the wind blew hard.
The data is in and there is something MAJORLY wrong with the reaction timing equipment here in Eugene. Devon Allen was screwed. World Athletics needs to make amends. At a minimum, an exhibition race with him and Grant Hollowa...
Seriously, So none of you see what this looks like? Show me the last time never mind, just weird who yall argue for and against. This is hilariously american. Welp rule worked against us so lets change it lol. Wow.
Wait what if shacarri richardson had false started? That would be fun. She lacks discipline and focus, what was she doing last night, she didnt care about the meet,who false starts at a championship meet blah blah blah. But what not one person would say is change the rule. She got busted for weed and was still focused enough to not false start.
Letsrun journalists and peanut gallery only rush to attack the science when white English speaking athletes are caught. I'm still waiting for a convincing CAS report to support the Houlihan ban.
This is a great article - nicely done. Thank god we have a ton of passionate and smart fans of the sport who can put this sort of content together in a few hours. The stats regarding Eugene reaction times vs other championships is damning and frightening.
I think fans watching track at Hayward over the last few years have recognized this. The amount of visibly bogus false starts was stunning. I think back to trials last year where in 110 degrees plus there were athletes called back multiple times to blocks - I think one of the more absurd occurrences was in the womens 400mH of all events (if I'm not mistaken).
Think of how this now impacts the meet and athletes moving forwards. The competition committee can't change things now because I don't know you possibly can given that athletes were removed from races at semi-final and final stages and to do so would essentially mean an admission of ineptitude that would surely end up in court. But if you are an athlete involved in any event that involves a block start, are you not terrified about, well, getting out of the blocks fast? If you are a good starter, your advantage is almost totally gone here because its in your best interests to hold back or risk getting bounced for a false start. In that hurdles final Trey Cunningham was out in 0.109 - he was only "legal" by 9 thousandths of a second.
This has the possibility of being an even bigger catastrophe than it is already with the Lyles, Knighton showdown looming - is anyone confident here we don't see something of significance in the 200?
Seriously, So none of you see what this looks like? Show me the last time never mind, just weird who yall argue for and against. This is hilariously american. Welp rule worked against us so lets change it lol. Wow.
The rule didn't just work against "America" dude. There were young women in the 100m semi-finals that got hosed too. If it takes one of the highest profile American athletes to highlight what appears to not just be wrong to the the eye but now almost statistically impossible than that's what it takes.
Should nobody bother to look into this just because it was Devon Allens situation that bought the most spotlight to it?
Is there some mathematical proof you can't start within .10? This is ridiculous?
It didn't look like he false started.
99% of people can't start faster than .10, but as with everything, there are outliers and there are circumstances when a sprinter nails it, as-in getting a perfect start. What the system is attempting to do is force athletes to react to the sound of the gun with the assumption being sound travels at a certain speed the human neuromuscular response to can only occur within a certain amount of time. I watched Devon's start in super slow motion multiple times and I can say without a doubt Devon did release pressure and/or exit the blocks until after the trigger pull on the gun.
Track has lots of problems. Doping (obvs) which is an ongoing saga that may never be resolved. Intersex/DSD athletes has also been a highly controversial and complicated challenge for World Athletics. But this situation... this might be the most embarrassing (but easiest to solve!!) of them all. It is so clear to just about everyone that this was arbitrary and wildly unfair, and it sends a terrible message to young people watching the sport - that if you work super super hard for years you could be penalized for being 'too good' and then not even get to compete?! I love track and field but this really casts a pall over the entire championships (and World Athletics deserves every bit of the bad press they will get after this)
Only losers think like this. Winners focus on winning!
I have to say, I have been in, or watching Track Meets for over 49 years. I fully understand that notion of "too fast" a reaction time. But I watched this race 5 times last night and 10 today, and I cannot pick up a false start,
You couldn't pick up the false start because he didn't false start. It was an error with Eugene's reaction timing system. Everyone's reaction times in Eugene are .02 lower than they are supposed to be.
I hope they fix it before the 200m starts.
What you said was false. Look at all the reaction times in the 100m, 110H and 400m so far. It is normal to any track meet.
Why is everyone so surprised about this rule. Its decades old. Now all of a sudden everyone wants to question the rule.
You couldn't pick up the false start because he didn't false start. It was an error with Eugene's reaction timing system. Everyone's reaction times in Eugene are .02 lower than they are supposed to be.
I hope they fix it before the 200m starts.
What you said was false. Look at all the reaction times in the 100m, 110H and 400m so far. It is normal to any track meet.
Why is everyone so surprised about this rule. Its decades old. Now all of a sudden everyone wants to question the rule.
This is a blatant lie and its been disproven by statistics in multiple threads. Eugene is absolutely an outlier compared to past Worlds/Olympics.
How do you manage to mess up literally everything? Didn’t even mention the other 3 athletes that got screwed.
So now this article comes across to a lot of people as Americans crying because an American was screwed.
Alfred was a legit medal contender. Gaither prob wouldn’t have made the finals but you never know. And the 100m runner from Fiji got royally screwed. He’ll prob never make it to a global champs again and he didn’t even get a result here, just a bs dq.
How do you manage to mess up literally everything? Didn’t even mention the other 3 athletes that got screwed.
So now this article comes across to a lot of people as Americans crying because an American was screwed.
Alfred was a legit medal contender. Gaither prob wouldn’t have made the finals but you never know. And the 100m runner from Fiji got royally screwed. He’ll prob never make it to a global champs again and he didn’t even get a result here, just a bs dq.
The article is ok, I just don't know what restitution is expected. The moment has gone. An exhibition is scant compensation for missing a world final and they aren't re-running the race. It's a likely injustice but what can you do?
How do you manage to mess up literally everything? Didn’t even mention the other 3 athletes that got screwed.
So now this article comes across to a lot of people as Americans crying because an American was screwed.
Alfred was a legit medal contender. Gaither prob wouldn’t have made the finals but you never know. And the 100m runner from Fiji got royally screwed. He’ll prob never make it to a global champs again and he didn’t even get a result here, just a bs dq.
The article is ok, I just don't know what restitution is expected. The moment has gone. An exhibition is scant compensation for missing a world final and they aren't re-running the race. It's a likely injustice but what can you do?
I think the bigger issue here is they are still using this timing equipment. May not be able to change the outcome of Allen's race, but they can prevent other athletes from being screwed over. Can you imagine if Lyles or Knighton false started in the 200m final due to a faulty timing system?
