“False start” – Star hurdler Devon Allen disqualified from World Championship over ‘BS Rule’
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Devon Allen
Olympic hurdler Devon Allen was disqualified from World Athletics Championship Finals for starting too soon after the gun was fired. The Philadelphia Eagles signed up Devon as their wide receiver earlier this year. During this event, he started alongside his competitors in the men’s 110m final hurdle in Eugene, Oregon on Sunday.
But as soon as the participants reached their first hurdle they were called back by a fired shot. According to the official’s timing technology, Devon started at 0.099 seconds after the shot. Though he argued about his disqualification, he was shortly escorted out of the track. Sadly, this was his last athletics competition before he starts his NFL career.
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Devon Allen disqualified from his last athletics event
According to current international rules for track and field sprints, an athlete can be disqualified for false starting, if they begin within 0.1 seconds after the shot was fired. This proved that Devon should be out of the match as he started by one-thousandth of a second.
His disqualification enraged the fans who called for a rule change. As per newsbreak.com, NBC Sports Nick Zaccardi tweeted, “Another time to question if one-tenth of a second should be deemed the cut-off for false start DQs”. “Especially when .108 and .109 were legal reaction times from [competitors] Shane Brathwaite and Trey Cunningham. That’s really close to .100. How can one be so sure that nobody can react to a gun faster than .100?”
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Afterward, Devon told the reporters, “When I was flagged I was very surprised”. “Which, you know, was also part of the frustration because I know for a fact that I didn’t react until I heard the gun. And to be 1/1000 too quick … it kinda sucks.” Even Steve Magness, an author and a performance coach called the 0.1 standards a “BS Rule” and “completely arbitrary” with no science behind it.
World Athletics told Huffpost its timing system where the statement goes, “The 0.1-sec threshold to measure a false start was established based on the science on standard reaction times”. “It is standard procedure after each world championship for the World Athletics Competition Commission to review the championships and recommend any rule changes.” It further stated that the systems were “functioning as normal” for the race.
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Kaushani Chatterjee
(2141 Articles Published)