The sporting world was dismayed Sunday by the disqualification of hurdler Devon Allen from a World Athletics Championships final for starting too soon after the gun was fired.
Allen, an Olympic athlete who was signed by the Philadelphia Eagles as a wide receiver earlier this year, appeared to start normally alongside his competitors in the men’s 110m hurdle final in Eugene, Oregon, on Sunday. But as they approached the first hurdle, officials fired the gun to call them back.
According to the timing technology, Allen had started 0.099 seconds after the gun.
Under current international rules for track and field sprints, an athlete is disqualified for false starting if they start within 0.1 seconds after the gun has fired. This meant Allen had false started by one thousandth of a second.
Allen argued he should be allowed to compete, according to Fox Sports . However, he was ultimately disqualified and escorted from the track. It was his last athletics competition before starting his NFL career.
Many fans and commentators were outraged with the decision and called for the rule to be changed.
“Another time to question if one tenth of a second should be deemed the cut-off for false start DQs,” NBC Sports’ Nick Zaccardi tweeted . “Especially when .108 and .109 were legal reaction times from [competitors] Shane Brathwaite and Trey Cunningham. That’s really close to .100. How can one be so sure that nobody can react to a gun faster than .100?”
Cunningham, an American, ultimately took second place in the race. Grant Holloway, also from the U.S., came in first.
Performance coach and author Steve Magness called the 0.1 standard a “BS rule” and “completely arbitrary” with no science behind it.
“When I was flagged I was very surprised,” Allen told reporters afterward. “Which, you know, was also part of the frustration because I know for a fact that I didn’t react until I heard the gun. And to be 1/1000 too quick ... it kinda sucks.”
He later congratulated his fellow U.S. athletes for taking the top two spots.
“Great job to my boys,” he tweeted, tagging Holloway and Cunningham. “1,2 in the hurdles! US back on top!”
World Athletics, the governing body for the sport, told HuffPost its timing system to identify false starts includes two components: pressure sensors in each starting block and two high-speed cameras to capture athlete reaction times. Those systems were “functioning as normal” for the race.
“The 0.1 sec threshold to measure a false start was established based on the science on standard reaction times,” the statement said. “It is standard procedure after each world championships for the World Athletics Competition Commission to review the championships and recommend any rule changes.”
July 19, 2022: Story updated with comment from World Athletics.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.
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