Shooting yourself in the foot with a starter's gun

The disqualification of Usain Bolt from the final of the Men's 100 metres at the World Championships over the weekend was notable as much for the self-inflicted wounds suffered by television as for the event itself.

The false start rule has been tinkered with aggressively over the last few years, getting steadily stricter in an effort to get sprinters away first time. This is partly about stopping sprinters deliberately false starting as a way of unsettling opponents, but it's also partly about the demands of television companies who, having paid to cover live sporting events, don't want those pesky events interfering with their schedules, and therefore want races to go off on time, first time.

So what we now have is automatic disqualification for the first false start offence. Now, quite obviously, no sprinter is deliberately going to false start now. Any false start is going to be a genuine mistake. No matter, though - the rule makers have had their say. So we had, in Daegu, the ludicrous position of the best known athlete in the world, Olympic champion, world record holder and massive favourite, and the reason people scramble for tickets for the 100 metres, not starting a race which went off late anyway because of one false start.

Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. If this has been done to satisfy TV companies, then they got what they deserved. As usual, the poor souls in the stadium, who'd paid good money to see the best athletes contest the final, did not. Even if you watched the race, can you name the winner without looking it up? If you can, you're better informed than I am. Media coverage of the race has, and will, focus exclusively on a man who didn't even run it, rather than the winner. Such is the sacrifice that the athletes, and spectators, must offer up to the great televisual gods.

Seb Coe, in a fashion entirely in keeping with the head in the sand, 'nothing wrong here' attitude of athletics governing bodies and nicely resonant of his response to the Olympic ticketing cock-up, has said he sees no reason to tinker with the rules for the Olympics next year. In which case, they'd better just hope that there are no false starts involving major names in any of the heats or semis of this competition, or we could end up with an Olympic 100 metres gold won in well over 10 seconds. Hardly blue-riband quality for the highest profile event anywhere in athletics. They really, really need to think about where their priorities lie.