Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Go on the "B" of Bang?

So the new false-start rule denied us the chance to see Usain Bolt in the 100 metres final at the World Championships, and not surprisingly there have been calls for the rule to be looked at again.  This is I think the third different rule we've had in the last ten years or so, which gives some indication of how difficult it is to come up with a rule which satisfactorily penalises false-starters while not spoiling the race as a spectacle.  Can I suggest that one possibility could be that the penalty is directed more to the outcome?  If a false-starter was allowed to run, but was penalised one place (or maybe in the 100 metres, say a tenth of a second) for any false start, then you could still have the race run as intended - just the outcome would be adjusted to take account of any false starts.

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