Sprint guys, explain the .10 rule. Is the tolerance on the machine even .001?

It’s just a stinking rule! Just the concept of holding athletes accountable for moving .1 second of the gun is ridiculous. Zoom in on each athlete, if there’s premature movement DQ em. If there’s movement but indeterminate, call a False on the Field, next questionable or violation is a DQ with no grace extended. This is likely to happen again this week and could blow up the meet.

The fact that these rules aren't followed strictly in the DL or other meets is a marker of how track and field is still run like an amateur sport. The rules do apply, but if it's, say, a French guy false starting at the Paris DL, then the officials will overlook it or find some way that the equipment malfunctioned.

That's not a comment on Allen's situation. With the naked eye and slow mo replays, I couldn't see anything wrong. But if they'd have let him run, can you imagine the kind of talk that would have been going around among athletes? Everyone would be discussing how Americans get preferential treatment at their home games.

More about the part I put in bold, please. We need to get to the bottom of this. Sounds like wejo is correct that the tolerance of the machine+timing company systematic error is worse than 0.001 - it's more like 0.02.

if a US medal hope wasn't the culprit here we'd be staring at an empty page

There are about a half dozen of us on this message board that have all reached the same conclusion based on statistical analysis. It's not really a tolerance problem that Wejo mentioned as a possibility. Tolerance is a plus or minus situation which is not what's going on here.

In this case the reaction times have been skewed .02 - .025 downwards for 100% of the sprinters at these Eugene world championships compared to all other world championships and Olympics in history.

Meaning what was recorded as a .09x reaction time at these championships was in reality only a .11x reaction time. Which means that the 4 runners who were DQ'd for false starting didn't actually false start.

It also means that everyone who has been saying, "Well, maybe runners can react in .09 after all" are wrong. Runners can't react that fast. It's just the reaction timing system being screwed up that makes it seem like they reacted that fast.

The sh!t is going to hit the fan in Eugene. Too many people have figured out the problem for the officials to try to cover it up.

I wonder how they will try to make it up to the 4 people who were incorrectly DQ'd?

Wejo, there have been a lot of good posts in this thread recently while you were sleeping, but long story short, the starting blocks have been recording reaction times about .02 faster than they should have for ALL the sprinters.

Which means that the 4 people who were DQ'd were all DQ'd incorrectly, including Devon Allen, because their .11x reaction times were incorrectly recorded as .09x reaction times.

That's right. Devon Allen lost a shot at a world championship because of a faulty reaction timing system. He got royally screwed!

Have Jon Gault start digging into this story with the meet officials ASAP. You guys are always looking for a scoop, right? Well, here it is. Incorrectly DQ'ing people at a world championship is a BIG DEAL!

Find out:

A) Will they re-run any of the races?

B) Will they be providing financial compensation to the incorrectly DQ'd runners?

C) If this problem was obvious to many of us who aren't even at the meet, how come the meet's timing officials weren't smart enough to notice the problem sooner?

D) How soon can they get the reaction timing system fixed?

E) Will the sprints have to be pushed back a day or two in order to have enough time to fix it?

F) Did the error in the reaction timing system only effect reaction times? Or did it make the finishing times of the sprints incorrect as well?

I'm a scientist myself as well as having an engineering degree, so I get that and can understand the possibility or likelihood of that being a time equipment error. You guys should present the data here is all I'm saying. Or contact LR/Gault so he can write an article about it.

Is there a rule go allow running under protest? You can't see him move with the naked eye. There's always the possibility of a defect with machinery. I don't know the rules. Is there a rule allowing running under protest. If you think the machine is in error?

My understanding is that "running under protest" isn't really an official rule, but some meets will allow a runner to do it anyway.

By "some meets" I mean a regular invitational, not a global championship.

I know that several runners over the years have asked to run in a global championship race under protest, and to the best of my recollection they were all turned down.

There is a leeway built in of 0.2. 1.2 is the actual fastest reaction time he jumped the gun

This.

Just eyeballing a couple past years, there are hardly any reaction times below .13. This year it is extremely common, including 5 guys in the 100 final (Coleman was .104).

If someone has the time (which this is letsrun so someone most definitely does) they should put together a spreadsheet comparing reaction times from previous meets to this year. I'd bet there is a statistically significant difference this year.

Brojos: if the timing system is off, this is huge!

Just did a quick calc of Doha versus Eugene for round 1 of the men's 100m

Doha Average Reaction: .162

Eugene: .135

Something is off

Exactly. And if you compare the average reaction time in the men's 100m at Eugene 2022 vs Tokyo Olympics or London WC 2017 or Beijing WC 2015, you'll see the same thing.

And you'll see the same thing with the men's 110 hurdles. Which is a bigger deal because someone (Devon Allen) got DQ'd in the hurdles this year because of the faulty reaction timing system.

Fortunately no one got DQ'd in the men's 100 this year.

Some questions to ask (maybe for Gault to ask):

How is the accuracy of the reaction timing system verified? How often is it checked? As a scientist, just about everything I use to measure anything has a calibration book and schedule for calibration. I would think there should be a calibration book associated with each individual starting block or reaction timing system. (If you get pulled over for speeding, you can question the calibration of the radar/laser guns the cops used...) Are there serial numbers on the individual blocks? How many blocks do they have at Hayward, and are they associated with a particular lane, or are they able to be set in any lane? Are these the same blocks that others recall possibly having the same issue in past meets at Hayward? Is there a record of which block is used by which athlete in - at least the big meets? Many have said they noticed an across-the-board 0.02-0.025 second quicker reaction times, but it's worth checking, if possible, if there is an association with a particular block or lane. The answer can give the timing company, or better yet, a qualified third party technical expert/engineering company, a hint to where the (possible) error is coming from.

Damn you guys are right. In the first round of the Men’s 100m, 16 people had a reaction time of .118 or faster.

Fred Kerley was .107. No way he was anticipating the gun in the first round.

My post from the champs thread. For all you racists out there, I posted it just BEFORE Allen’s DQ:

“The rule is ridiculous. The reading relies on force plates, probably piezoeectric, in the blocks—and HOPEFULLY some kind of algorithm, not just some instantaneous threshold, or windowed summation.

The problem is that people twitch in the blocks involuntarily, and not only can it not enhance their start, sometimes it makes it worse. And different people apply different basic back-pressure.

The 0.010 should only be used as justification for a closer look at the tape, but that’s not how it’s done. Bad rule.”

I think people are just upset because it happened to a beloved sprinter on the thinnest of margins. Remember the margin is already set with some cushion. It's an unpopular opinion and will probably be down voted because it's a tragic situation.

Now you are catching on.

The question is what to do about the 4 people incorrectly DQ'd who didn't actually false start. It's going to get interesting.