Four-time Olympic medallist Ato Boldon had a premonition that the false start controversy that has turned the World Track and Field Championships upside down would happen sooner rather than later.
Back in June, Boldon, a Universal Sports sprint analyst, predicted the likes of the disaster that resulted in the stunning disqualification of superstar sprinter Usain Bolt from the 100-metre final, over the weekend.
“Someone ‘big’ will get thrown out of their Trials or at the Olympics. I would bet my house on it,” he said.
“We will see something like an Olympic semi-final, or some high-tension race, combined with some starter who wants to put almost three seconds in between ‘set’ and the gun. It’s not about ‘if’, it’s about ‘when’.”
Well, the when is now.
“I think it’s going to take one of two things,” Boldon said in June.
“One, if Usain Bolt gets thrown out in the semi-final stage in Daegu, I think the rule would disappear next year. The other way, I think, is if the controversy continues.”
Two years ago, track and field’s world governing body adopted a zero-tolerance policy when it comes to false starts in the sprint events.
The change drew mixed reactions at the time.
Dislike for the rule reached a simmer midway through this season.
The rule claimed the biggest scalp in track and field when world-record-holder Bolt false-started in the 100m final and was disqualified at the World Championships in Daegu, raising further questions about the rule’s viability.
With Bolt, the sport’s unquestioned star, showing signs of vulnerability this season but flashes of brilliance in the early rounds, anticipation for this final was high.
The race unfolded as most involving the 6-foot-5 Jamaican.
As the crowd began to cheer during runner introductions, Bolt mugged for the cameras, pointing toward American Walter Dix to his right, and teammate Yohan Blake to his left, playfully shaking his head before framing his own face with two hands. Yes, that’s who they were cheering for.
Runners were called to the start, and Bolt yelled, “Let’s go!” and pounded his chest before crouching into the blocks.
You could tell he was more ready to run than at any point in the last two years.
In fact, he was too animated.
In just the last two days, we have now seen Bolt, as well as Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu and her British 100m teammate Dwain Chambers, disqualified for false starts.
An entire sport cannot be rendered irrelevant by a singular rule. Having the biggest star – check that, a global icon – in a sport struggling for attention – it was hard to miss all the empty seats for the 100m final even before Bolt got thrown out – getting the heave-ho for what is, for all intents and purposes, a minor infraction is bad for business.
The one-false start rule was added basically for the benefit of television, providing insurance against long delays with multiple false starts. But do you think losing the likes of Bolt is good for ratings?
Beginning in 2003, one false start was allowed per race. A second false start resulted in the automatic exclusion of the guilty sprinter.
In 2010, the IAAF amended the rule to state that 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.
The IAAF needs to return to the previous incarnation of the false start rule, or, as American hurdler David Oliver believes, make a provision for the World Championships and Olympics that allows for more than one false start.
Make no mistake about it, track and field cannot head into the London Olympics in 2012 with a rule in place that would allow for a repeat of this fiasco.
If IAAF president Lamine Diack can’t see that reality, then the sport just made a huge four-year mistake by re-electing him.
