MAKING OF CHAMPS: Organisers move past false start challenges

Following last year’s controversy where more than 60 false starts were recorded over the five-day ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys and Girls’ Athletics Championships (Champs), meet director, Anthony Davis, says measures have been taken to ensure that those unprecedented numbers are not repeated.

The 2026 Championships have already seen false starts, not unusual in high-pressure competition even at the international senior level.

On Wednesday, a race recall resulted in a re-run of the Class 4 Girls 100-metre final, after several athletes completed the race having not heard the second gun signalling the recall.

Davis told The Gleaner the owners of the equipment, the Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA), conducted diagnostic checks on the FinishLynx Electronic Start System (ESS) prior to Tuesday’s start of Champs to ensure it was not faulty.

The ESS synchronises the start signal with an audible tone, recording reaction times to flag false starts and interfaces with a computerised board displaying results immediately after athletes cross the finish line.

“The additional thing was a technician from the manufacturing company is here assisting, checking and he is here for the entire five days to troubleshoot. So, you may have noticed him down there helping to make adjustments, so I think the biggest thing that we have done is focussing on the equipment. Now the starters themselves, everybody would rather that not happen again, so I think they are a little bit more alert,” Davis told The Gleaner.

On Thursday, the preliminary round of the 200 metres had several recalls for faulty starts and disqualifications for false starts.

If the starter is satisfied that the break at the start was accidental, a green card is shown to the field signalling no disqualification. A yellow card is shown to an athlete deemed to have disturbed the start, while a red card is shown to an athlete, signalling disqualification, where the ESS picks up a reaction time of under 0.100 or the athlete obviously left the blocks before the gun.

According to Davis, the schools competing at Champs were also engaged.

“What we have done, we have zone meetings and we speak with the coaches at the zone meetings you know and they too are also very concerned about it, so I think they would have briefed their athletes as to how to wait and report at the sound of the gun. The officials are here to make you comfortable you know. We are not here to disqualify people. We are here to make sure everybody has a fair chance of achieving their best results.”

Dwayne Extol, who represented Wolmer's Boys’ School at Champs and also competed at the collegiate and national levels, acknowledged the intensity of the moment, but encouraged athletes to trust their training.

“There is nothing you can tell them now because in a championship scenario nerves will get the best of you, It’s how you practise coming into championships. But now I think what the coaches can do and what the athletes can do, you practise through breathing, you practise through visualisation and again at this stage it is hard to say ‘do this or do that’, but I think with the athletes now you have to remember that you’ve trained a lot for a couple months well and you’ve an opportunity to represent your school in the best way possible. You don’t want to give up all that training at this time just because of a false start, so in case you want to anticipate the gun, don’t, just react to the sound and allow your training to do the rest. Don’t try to do more than you have done in training. Do exactly what you’ve been told and you will, as best as I can say, get the results you want.”

The JAAA Finish/Link ESS is also used at National Trials while MVP Track & Field Club uses a separate Finish/Lynx ESS at their Velocity Fest Series, as well as other meets.