I usually start preparing for Champs the morning after the last Champs. Since the tickets are usually sold off before they go on sale, I place myself in front of a television set for the entire five days. This time, I watched in amazement at the abundance of incredible talent, and technical competence, even among the youngest competitors. But something spoiled it for me. It was the number of disqualifications because of false starts and suspect, fake false starts.

I remember the first time I left Brown’s Town for the National Stadium. When I entered the packed stadium, I was terrified. I would have turned back if my principal was not immediately behind me. For some of these competitors coming from rural Jamaica, many as young as 10 years old, to be expected to come into this situation and compete without feeling nervous is just cruel and crazy. Many of them — even the older ones — are just a bag of nerves. Competition in front of thousands of noisy strangers is not normal. I remember a coach telling me that when he spotted a certain person, who is now one of our legends, he arranged for him to participate in a race. At race time he could not be found. He was later found hiding in a bathroom, terrified about performing in public.

In track and field, the sport’s governing body, the The International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) has a rule that if the athlete moves within 0.1 seconds after the gun has fired the athlete has false-started. Before 2003, an athlete making a false start would be allowed another start and would only be disqualified after another false start. Is this new rule fair to these children? Is this fair to any human?

In 2009, the IAAF claimed that slower starting runners were intentionally false-starting to put pressure on sprinters who were generally faster out of the blocks. As a result, they were going to change the rules to what it is now. I waited for the body that governed track and field in Jamaica to protest, but there was no response that I heard. That concerned me.

Jamaica is the sprint capital of the world. This rule affects us more than anyone else. We only got a response from Usain Bolt. In one of his less memorable statements he supported the new rule. So when he false-started in Daegu, he had to keep quiet.

In 2015, a disqualified athlete told me that he was guilty. But he reacted to an official nearby who giggled as the “set” order was given. He knew it, but he could never prove it. How can one tell what triggers a response in a stadium with thousands of spectators?

Many have accepted the IAAF ‘excuse’ for changing the rule. But I challenge that. The purpose of bringing the zero-tolerance “one and done” false-start rule on January 1, 2010 was to serve television executives, who hated the delays that false starts created. So the rule was brought in eliminate the long deferments. I believe it is for the same reason the Olympic committee often changes the line-up of events that are to be included from Olympiad to Olympiad — to serve television and marketing. Remember the decision to include rhythmic gymnastics and synchronized diving? When the person who saved track and field — the most marketable face at the IAAF World Champs, Usain Bolt — false-started, what happened next should be a sobering moment for those who are preoccupied with the marketing end of things — the more perceptive among us saw people streaming out of the stadium. That was a serious message to the sport’s governing bodies worldwide and locally. People do not empty their bank accounts, take flights, buy tickets, fry fish to go to an event to watch the second best perform. There are eight lanes. We want to see a competition between the eight best!

When the people in charge were through with some competitors in one race on Thursday, only three runners were left. Nonsense! Dem could false-start till dem weak. Dem fi run! These athletes have been preparing from August. Some of them for years. Can legal action be taken against anyone? Can the organisers prove that I did not false start because an official sneezed?

May I suggest the following:

(i) That no child below the age of 14 or participating for the first time be subject to disqualification due to the false start rule.

(ii) That for all races of the 400m and below, the first false start counts against the entire field, regardless of who commits it. And that the second false start goes against the individual perpetrator.

(iii) That video footage be available to justify the decision to disqualify a competitor.

As an aside, men have been overwhelmingly more likely to false start than women. In the 2007 World Champs, the ratio of false starters, men to women was 18/8; Beijing, 26/7; Berlin, 18/7. Six of the 10 false starts in Daegu were committed by men.

Once again, we see organisations creating rules, ostensibly to improve the quality of the beneficiaries, when the motivation is a selfish, unrelated motivation. Athletes train for years, deny themselves many pleasures, and spend in order to get to the top of their game only for someone with a different motivation to destroy this in a second. It is not fair, and it may be illegal.

Glenn Tucker, MBA, is a former coach at Holmwood Technical High School. Send comments to the Observer or glenntucker2011@gmail.com.