The most confusing thing about our sport

***Indoor people, I'm talking about outdoor racing.  However, it's almost the same thing indoors now.

  Pack starts have always confused me.  When I first learned about them it was explained like this..."the ref will tell everyone to wait for the gun, and then everyone will cheat."  This seemed odd to me.  Some where in the history of our sport, someone decided that as long as the start is close to when the gun goes off, then it's fair. Recently at worlds they have changed the rules slightly in the right direction.  There is now a command, people step in to a box and then the gun goes.  Sometimes they call false starts, sometimes they don't.  Leaning is basically allowed, not by rule, but it's never called as long as you don't cross the line before the gun is fired.  At our national championships I had friends that had never seen our sport before and were there watching the 500 meter.  When someone jumped and it wasn't called they asked "why was that allowed."  I told them about our lax false start rules.  They replied, "so it's ok to move before the gun goes, that's dumb." I couldn't argue. If you look at track, swimming, ice speed, skiing, motocross, horse racing, or basically any other sport that involves racing and the rule is you can't move before the gun is fired.  For some crazy reason our sport isn't like that.  Can anyone explain why we don't have a command, everyone locks into a position, and there can be no movement until the starting gun is fired?  It's not like we don't have the ability to lock into a position and not move.  We all just learn to anticipate the gun, instead of waiting for it to go off.  If you're old and slow footed like me, this isn't such a bad thing... sometimes I can beat faster guys to the corner by leaning and anticipating the gun.  But I feel like the person with the fastest reaction time and quickest speed should win the start, not the one who guessed correctly.

"So how would you do such a thing?" one might ask.  My idea is pretty simple... first you give the "in position" command and everyone steps in to the block.  Then you hold for 2 to 4 seconds.  And here's the kicker... if you move before the gun, you're out.  No second chance, no do over because you guessed wrong.  You lock into your starting position, and you don't move until the gun goes.  Watch how quickly false starts go away.  You'll need an elevated way to watch the start, so you can see entire line and if there is any leaning.  You could also use a camera to review and see if someone is moving or not.  It's 2012, there's technology to see if someone false starts or not, and in events like the world championship it should be completely fair.  It may seem harsh at first, but everyone knows how to lock into position... we have just been conditioned not to.

Sorry that was my rant for the day.. there's other stuff too, but i really wanted to get that off my chest.. .PHEEEEW...



This is the video from the 500 meter final at worlds in 2011.  While there is other things wrong with this race, just watch the start.  I can't be the only thing that sees something terribly wrong with that.. and it's not the skaters fault, that's how we've all learned.  But that is a hard thing to explain to someone seeing our sport for the first time.... or maybe to someone watching our sport deciding if it should be in the Olympic Games... Like someone will be doing in the very near future..