I have already written about the plan of WA to modify the rules concerning the judging of fouls in horizontal jumps. The new rules were supposed to come into force from this November, but given the current situation, with an almost inexistent 2020 season, their application was postponed to November 2021.
Here is how the situation is summarised on the WA site.
Currently, a no-jump is called if an athlete is judged, while taking off, to have touched the ground beyond the take-off line. A plasticine board set at an angle of 45° has been long used to assist with such decisions. Under the new Technical Rule (number 30.1.1), it will be a failure on take-off if any part of the take-off shoe or foot breaks the vertical plane of the take-off line. It was felt that this would be more understandable and simpler to judge.
Balderdash! (And I almost used another b-word).
The old rule occasionally allowed toecaps to visibly broach the line without marking plasticine. In the future, such moments are to be fouls.
Let me translate. From now on, the judge will be free to interpret the "broaching of the line" and distort the results as he wishes.
In the article quoted above I was writing about what happened to poor King Carl and how he was robbed of a fantastic world record.
Before publishing that article I came accross a mention of the rule change. My reaction there was
"Where the people who proposed this completely brainless?"
It looks like they are.
And just to make things harder, the plasticine board, if used, is to be set at 90°.
How many years have we gone without a world record in a horizontal jump? Unless I'm mistaken the more recent world record dates back to 1995. And WA, instead of adopting a strategy that would liberate the jumpers from the foul angst and help them go fetch longer jumps is moving to the opposite direction making things even harder for them.
But wait, things are getting worse. A new rule stipulates that World Championships and Olympic Games are no longer excluded from competitions where events may be held in an alternative format. Which means that we may well see the "last jump absurdity" entering the Olympic Games.
Had this "last jump" been used in the 1991 Tokyo World's, M. Powell would have been second, having fouled his last jump while C. Lewis managed 8.86 m. Fortunately the competition ended with Powell first, with a world record 8.95 m, and Lewis second with a wind assisted 8.91 m. In the 1995 Göteborg World's I. Kravets who had registered a 15.50 m world record on her third attempt, would have ended up third since she fouled the last jump (while I. Prandzheva and A. Biryukova had valid jumps at 15.00 and 14.66 m respectively). Closer to us, C. Taylor would not have been world champion last year despite his 17.92 m, since he jumped a "mere" 17.54 m at his last try, while W. Claye and H.F. Zango had both jumps at 17.66 m. Same scenario for Y. Rojas in the women's event (which she won with 15.37 m). She fouled her last jump, while C. Ibargüen had a valid 14.47 m.
But if things do not reach this level of sport-ruining decisions it is highly probable to see one day the horizontal jump competitions limited to just four tries. And in fact why limit this to jumps? How about limiting throws as well to just four tries? Or perhaps allow three tries to all finalists and then allow a fourth one to just the first three. (And award the positions according to the "last jump" procedure). I am feeling here that WA is trying to kill athletics.
You may point out at this point that they are "only" trying to kill the field events, track ones are safe. Not so fast! They have also plans intended to ruin track events. In long distance races there is a possibility of an elimination system where all competitors start together and after a certain distance the last runner through each lap is eliminated till just four remain for the final lap. When I first saw such a race in the 2018 Continental Cup I found it entertaining. It is not a bad idea for a week-end competition among friends. But once you start looking closer at the difficulties, then all havoc breaks loose.
When such a competition was first organised in 2009 European Team Championships, the winner of the women's race was disqualified because she should have been eliminated at a previous lap. In the men's race four athletes reached the line in the same time and stopped waiting for the photo-finish to tell who had to be eliminated. It's difficult to imagine a more ridiculous situation.
So please, Sir Sebastian, don't add insult to injury telling us that the new rules are introduced in order to promote athletics. They are there to please the television producers, who at first will throw some extra money in the direction of athletics and, once people start not caring about the rigmarole of track and field "competitions", they will entirely forget our sport.
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