False starts in athletics could become a thing of the past after the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) voted to abolish them through a “zero false start rule” Sunday. The IAAF council, meeting here, added that a final decision will not be taken until the IAAF congress meets on August 13-14 on the sidelines of the world championships. If the decision is approved, false starts could cease to exist as of Jan. 1 2010 with any athletes running before the gun being disqualified immediately. Since Jan. 1 2003, only one false start has been tolerated with a second resulting in the athlete responsible being expelled from the race, whether or not he was involved in the first false start. Finals-only evenings Athletics chiefs also plan to have only finals and semifinals during shorter evening sessions at major events from 2011, in an attempt to make their sport more attractive to television audiences. Packaging the prime-time sessions into a friendlier television format was one of the themes covered Sunday at the meeting of the International Association of Athletics Federations' council. “We have to see how to make better presentation of our world championships,” IAAF President Lamine Diack said after the meeting. The IAAF is currently negotiating new television rights with the European Broadcasting Union. World Indoor Championships will have no finals on Friday, the first day of the competition, while the evening sessions will be three hours long on both Saturday and Sunday and will be limited only to finals, plus semifinals in the 60-meter sprints and 60-meter hurdles, Hersh said. Such a timetable will be used for the first time at the next indoor worlds in 2011 in Doha, Qatar, with the first outdoor championships using it later that year in Daegu, South Korea. There had been calls to reduce the outdoor championships, which remain a nine-day event, to six days. There are 47 finals at athletics championships. There are also plans to give meets a “cleaner appearance” by removing some nonessential officials and non-competitors from the field, he said. The IAAF also plans to start using Video Distance Measuring (VDM) for long jump and triple jump at Doha in 2011. The system will be also demonstrated in Berlin, although it will not be in official use.
