High Drama at the Commonwealth Games: The Women’s 100m Final sees two athletes disqualified
During yesterday’s women’s 100 metres final, controversy erupted when two of the finalists were disqualified for false starts. A lot of people have pointed to confusion at the starting line among the runners but some have
been more brutal and have pointed the finger of blame directly on the inexperienced starters employed in Delhi. The Commonwealth Games have already been seriously plagued by numerous problems and the problems do not look like they are ending any time soon.
Hopefully the Games can get over these hurdles and prove to be a great success for India.
Starting in track and field is a very special skill that takes a lot of practice and training. There is a whole set of rules that the starters have to follow. A starter uses a gun to start the race while the sprinters are
standing at the starting line. Before commencing the race, the runners are not allowed to touch the starting line or the ground in front of the line with either their hands or feet while on their marks. The starter will say the following before a race starts;
‘On Your Marks,’ ‘Set’ and then they fire their gun to start the race.
Sometimes though an athletes can make a false start. This is when a runner starts running before the sound of the gun. It is the job of the starter to determine which one of the runners has made a false start or not. The
starter has to make sure that no athlete has made a wrong move during any of the three phases of the start. Also if an athlete disturbs any other athlete during the starting phase they can be deemed to have made a false start. Any athlete that makes a false
start is automatically disqualified from the race.
The newest item to enter into running competitions is electronic starting blocks which measure the reaction time of the runners. If an athlete reacts in less than 0.1 seconds, that runner is guilty of having made a false
start.
The Women’s 100 metre final, that was held yesterday, was a pretty controversial affair. England’s Laura Turner and Australian Sally Pearson were both disqualified. The race was about to start and Turner false started and
put her hands up to motion that she had false started. Pearson thought that she was the one who had false started and also put her hands up. The starting officials only held up one false start card and Turner decided to run the race and leave her case up to
the appeal board after the race. After the race finished and Turner appealed, her appeal was turned down.
Even though both athletes were disqualified, a lot of people feel very sorry for Pearson. The reason is that Pearson is actually a 100 metres hurdler and she is not fully aware of the rules governing this specific event.
The problem for her is that due to the fact that Pearson was disqualified because of the false start is that she cannot now race in the specialist event. Being banned from one event automatically renders an athlete ineligible from another event. This has become
a problem for the Australian hurdler because now she cannot compete in her own specialist event.
There have been issues in the past where this has been a problem for some athletes. One of the top starters in the business, Alan Bell, who is the head of the starters for the 2012 London Olympics, felt that a lot of training
needed to be done by the Indian officials. It seemed to be a lack of training and experience on the part of the officials at the Delhi Games that brought about the type of situation that was witnessed. With a little bit more training and practice the problem
could be resolved.
What took place the other day was unfortunate for many of those who were involved. Pearson was denied a gold medal and there was a lot of confusion surrounding the event. This seemed to be yet another setback for the Indian
Games but hopefully these things can be ironed out in the next week.
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