Christie Not Robbed

(T&FN, March 1997)

Was Linford Christie an innocent victim of obsolete technical equipment and rules when he got his second false-start charge in the Olympic 100 final? That was the opinion expressed by engineer William Alston in the February issue of T&FN. According to Aiston, Christie has achieved an ability to consistently react quicker than the limit of 0.100 allowed by the IAAF rules, and his 0.086 "reaction time" in Atlanta shouldn't have been ruled illegal.

Respected Swedish statistician A. Lennart Julin begs to differ. "Actually, a more thorough analysis of the situation in Atlanta shows that Christie's false start was even more blatant than what the strictly numerical difference of 0.014 to the limit seems to indicate," he says.

Julin says only one rule can apply when it comes to a fair start: "Every competitor remains still in the blocks until they have 'experienced' the sound of the gun. Then, and only then, good reaction ability is a valuable asset while clairvoyance or luck plays no part."

Julin also notes that neuromuscular processes mandate that if athletes wait for the gun there will be an inevitable delay before they get moving. "It has nothing to do with 'will' and nobody has (yet?) been able to show that more than marginal improvements could be achieved through training," he says.

"Reactions have another significant characteristic. They are repeatable, as they are 'automatized body reflexes.' So if some athlete was gifted with superhuman reactions, that ability would show up in every start in every race. It is then quite interesting to look at the numbers actually produced by individual athletes in a sequence of races.

"Let's look at Gail Devers, well known for her always very strong early part of the races. In Atlanta she ran eight races on the straightaway and she recorded the following reaction times:

"Thus the variation for eight different starts was a mere 0.027 and she had six of eight crammed into 0.014. That is what it looks like when true reactions are in place. And Devers was far from unique in this aspect in Atlanta. Other typical examples: In the men's 100 Donovan Bailey had his four within 0.011 and Frank Fredericks his within 0.014--and in the women's 100H Michelle Freeman squeezed her four into 0.008.

"Now the obvious question is: what did Christie achieve in his other races in Atlanta? The answer: he had 0.160,0.134 and 0.125 in the 100 rounds, and 0.151 and 0.148 in his two 200 races. Slightly better than average but nothing exceptional and absolutely nothing indicating that he had an 0.086 up his sleeve.

"It's also interesting to look at the times recorded for Ato Boldon, who complained after the 100 final for being recalled and penalized for an 0.082 time. For Boldon the numbers were 0.137, 0.160,0.145 and 0.164 in the 100 and 0.182,0.148,0.160 and 0.208 in the 200. Would a true 0.082 reactor be so slow on all other occasions in Atlanta when so much was at stake?

"Thus the claim by Alston that 'consistent reaction times below 0.100 are easily attainable among athletes so trained' lacks any kind of factual support in current reality. Absolutely nobody has been able to demonstrate consistency at those levels.

"Nobody has shown consistency lower than 0.120.13, and furthermore, no trend of improvement can be found. In the '72 Olympics (system giving reaction times only in 1OOths) Valeriy Borzov recorded 0.12, 0.12, 0.12 and 0.13 in his four 1OOm races! Compare that, for example, with Christie's 0.130,0.142,0.129 and 0.110 in the '95 World Championships.

"So we can all rest assured that the warnings given to Boldon and Christie in the 100 final in Atlanta were deserved. Neither the equipment nor the rules did them any injustice. They were caught not because they were too skilled, but because they tried--perhaps subconsciously--to guess the gun.

"However, there was some kind of robbery involved in the start procedure in Atlanta--but that robbery was of a totally different nature." It has to do with the blocks used. (see following feature)