4x400: time to make changes?

[piaba]

i haven't been able to see the CW but it seems to me that there's got to be some changes to be made to this event. the high rate of disqualifications is getting to be ridiculous, and specially in light of whatever it is that happened to the english women's team, if it's true that an athlete of another country manipulated the situation to get england DQ'ed.

what y'all experts think????

[XCnut]

The Five Live Athletics forum has a lot of discussion about this event.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mbfivelive/F2148570?thread=2563841&skip=100&show=20

In my opinion, having watched the video as the situation developed, Tamsyn Lewis clearly came out and took the third position on the track(she stood in lane 3), allowing Natasha Danvers-Smith to move into the second position.
The French and English athletes made no attempt to return to her correct position, which would also have infringed the Rule!

There is some conjecture that the French athlete deliberately allowed the English athlete to take the second position, knowing that this would cause the English team to be disqualified.

The English athlete is clearly at fault by taking the second position and has to be disqualified.

This disqualification may not be in the spirit of the sport but it was introduced in 2002 by the IAAF. The easy solution would be to remove the disqualifiaction sentence, i.e. as per the 2000 edition of the Rule.

What would happen if the leading athlete at 200m subsequently finished eight and the eight athlete at 200m finished first? This would create a huge disadvantage for the leading team at the changeover and the last athlete to finish may have to negotiate any other athletes who inadvertently moved into an inner position on the track, which would infringe Rule 170(10) but there is no disqualification sentence associated with this particular rule.

The wording of the Rule 170 (9) makes it impossible not to disqualify the French athlete.

[Smoke]

True but not true

No rule is written in stone in track and field.
Let's review this meet; Asafa Powell runs out of his lane in the first round looking up at the big screen, he finished his race in the other man's lane. The ruling was no advantage was gained and no interference, so they ignored it with dq.
The men's 4x4 for AUS pushed the SA team into lane 3 and the second leg runner stops in the middle of the track and interferes with the English runner, causing him to jump around him. These were ruled accidents with no dq.
In the case of ther women's race, no advantage was gained no interference occured, so why wasn't this incident set aside like the rest??? More importantly the instructions were not clarified and the procedure was not explained. Once the race started the 3rd and 4th legs were taken off the track into a tunnel where they could not see the event. When the ladies were allowed onto the track the 2nd legs were coming off the turn, at which point ENG was in second and that is why Tasha walked into the second position. And in the spirit of fair play, Tamsyn has admitted she was well aware of the infraction the moment it happened and subsequently protested immediately following her leg. (She has attempted to say it was a group decision, but it was not. She was seen protesting by others near the finish before the race finished). And for those of you that cannot see it, the exchange of positions was while they were walking to their spots. In other words Tasha did not move around her after they were set, she walked past her as they were going out to the track. The only physical contact between the two was Tamsyn's hand on Tasha's back.

It is sad to say but the whole situation stinks of xenophobia. Too many rulings seemed based on favoritism rather than the letter of the law, except for this relay debacle....

[Jon]

The wording of the Rule 170 (9) makes it impossible not to disqualify the French athlete.

Huh? France aren't in the Commonwealth. The leading three teams coming into that changeover were Jamaica, England and Australia.

[EPelle]

Jon, what was Rooney:s split? Am interested to see how the kid fared after all 400m races and relays...

[Powell]

Re: True but not true

And for those of you that cannot see it, the exchange of positions was while they were walking to their spots. In other words Tasha did not move around her after they were set, she walked past her as they were going out to the track. The only physical contact between the two was Tamsyn's hand on Tasha's back.

But surely they must have been instructed by the officials in what order they should take positions on the track?

[Jon]

Jon, what was Rooney:s split? Am interested to see how the kid fared after all 400m races and relays...

44.8 in the semis, 44.5 in the final. 8)

[EPelle]

Holy buckets!!!!!!

[Infama]

VanZyl split 44 flat in the final of the relays.

[EPelle]

VanZyl deosn:t surpsie me... he is in the upper part of his hurdling class. Hope he can translate that to better performances over the 400m hurdles.

[Infama]

Smoke stop using Asafa's case as it is an inappropiate comparison.

Go check the iaaf competition rules 2006-7, rule 163, bottom page 108 to top of 109.

The rules are crystal clear:

Running in Lanes
4. .... If an athlete either:
(a) runs outside his lane in the straight, and no material advantage is gained
....
and no other runner is obstructed then he shall likewise not be disqualified.

As Powell despite veering off slightly from his lane (No 6) got 10.03 and the runners in the adjacent lanes finished well behind in 10.26 and 10.46 they were obviously not in any way obstructed.
So it was very much the situation this rule specifically targets as when a disqualification shall not be applied.
Your case has enough weight of truth in in that you dont need to resort to spurious correlations.

[26mi235]

I have the same take as Smoke. To me, if there is no significant disadvantage to a competitor it should, indeed maybe MUST, not be a DQ.

I think that the IAAF is failing to adopt and administer rules effectively. If you look at the number of DQs aside from FS (which relays can have as well), there may be 10 to 100 times as many DQs in the relays as in other events. The DQs do not lead to particularly fair results (if that 1500 result is more fair than this, I might quit following T&F). They do not help insure that the best athletes win. They do not stand our sport in good sted. They do not satisfy the T&F fans. WHAT ARE THEY GOOD FOR? Find a way to fix them and do it quickly.

[Daisy]

Re: True but not true

And in the spirit of fair play, Tamsyn has admitted she was well aware of the infraction the moment it happened and subsequently protested immediately following her leg. (She has attempted to say it was a group decision, but it was not. She was seen protesting by others near the finish before the race finished).

In light of the criticism from Ron Clarke:
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/common ... 75,00.html

And reading above, was there gamesmanship going on here? Is it possible that Lewis saw this unfold and intentionally let it happen? If this is true i am disgusted by the DQ. There should be some system set up where postions are set by officicials. In the heat of the moment the athletes cannot be expected to interpret what is happening on the track. This is not part of our sport its about who can run the fastest.

[marknhj]

Ms. Lewis would now appear to be charming young lady in more than one way...

[kevinsdad]

Invoking disqualification for violations having no effect on the competition is unjust and an embarassment to the sport. Since international track and field is now a pro sport, how about adopting the practice of other pro sports like basketball and (american) football, and institute fines for peripheral violations while leaving the competition result undisturbed? I say fine the English team $100, or pounds or whatever, and let them have the medals.