Q: What do you think about the new false start rule?

Km: We'll start with defining the "new" false start rule that IAAF adopted at the beginning of last year- if an athlete moves within 0.100 seconds after the gun has fired, he or she has false started and is immediately disqualified from the race. This differs from the "old" rule (2003), which allowed for one false start to be charged to the field (i.e., no one was disqualified) before anyone was DQ'd for jumping the gun (and the "old old" features the "3 strikes and you're out" policy... per athlete). The changes were made to speed up the meet and make Track and Field more TV-friendly.

Ok, so what do I think about it? At first glance, it seems logical... you get DQ'd if you start too early. I mean, other sports have adopted the "one and done" policy, and it has seemed to work ok. Why is it a problem for Track and Field? Well, the officials don't exactly enforce it all the time... basically, they don't want to disqualify any of the "big names" from the field... that would be awful for TV afterall! As for speeding up the meet, the rule is one giant FAIL! And how lame is it that they changed a rule to make something more TV-friendly?!? Jeez, are they going to start having commercial time-outs during the 10K?!? I mean, you're not going to attract that many more viewers if you speed up the meet by a like a minute... people aren't going to suddenly realize that they've been watching people run in circles for the past fifteen minutes and flip the channel if the start is recalled. It's like when they changed the Sci Fi acronym to SyFy to make the channel seem "less geeky"... no one's fooled... we all know a Cylon when we see one (or do we?!?... just kidding). So, all they did was make the people that do care angry... good plan... hope they get their acts together by 2012!

Ok, TV stupidness aside, if they're going to claim it's for standardization (i.e., electronic blocks let you know exactly when people start vs. the more subjective watching), then they should standardize everything. In other words, they should have an electronic starter. The problem with the meet where everyone and their brother false started... the starter had a whacky count and held them in the blocks too long. From the issuing of the "set" command, there is usually a fairly regular amount of time to the go command (I remember counting to two slowly in my head, and that seemed to work for the most part). When there isn't a standard amount of time, it really messes with your concentration, aside from the fact that it's hard to hold yourself in the "start" position for really long periods of time! By issuing the first false start to the field, it allows everyone to get used to the count of the starter, making it a valuable freebie. So, if they're going to standardize the "false start time", then they should standardize the "start count"... picking and choosing standards really accomplishes nothing except making a new standard (which isn't so "standard" if its the only one of its kind).

So, in summary, I THINK IT'S STUPID :-) !