Vox's Unexplainable Presents: Jumping the Gun

Summary

Vox's Unexplainable Presents: Jumping the Gun

Podcast Information:

• Title: Pablo Torre Finds Out
• Host/Author: Pablo Torre, Le Batard & Friends
• Episode: Vox's Unexplainable Presents: Jumping the Gun
• Release Date: July 24, 2025

---

Introduction

In this thought-provoking episode titled "Jumping the Gun," Vox's Unexplainable delves into the controversial world of false starts in professional sprinting. The episode examines whether the established rules governing reaction times are scientifically sound or unjustifiably punitive, featuring in-depth discussions with athletes, historians, and scientists.

---

Tynea Gaither’s False Start Experience

The episode centers around Tynea Gaither, a professional sprinter representing the Bahamas, who recounts her disheartening experience at the World Championships in July 2025. Gaither describes her rigorous preparation and the anticipation leading up to the semifinal race in the hundred-meter dash.

[03:12] Tynea Gaither: "These moments are everything to us."

As she sets up for the race, Gaither executes her pre-race rituals, attempting to center herself before the gunfire initiates the sprint.

[03:42] Tynea Gaither: "I slap my legs and I throw my arms up in the air and throw them back over my head and just do like a little shimmy with my shoulders..."

However, moments after the gunshot, confusion ensues when a second gun sound halts the race, leading to Gaither's immediate disqualification for a false start.

[05:00] Tynea Gaither: "There was no guessing in my start. My coach trains us to wait until we hear the start."

Gaither vehemently denies the accusation, asserting her innocence and the integrity of her training.

---

The Science Behind Reaction Times

The core of the episode questions the validity of the 0.1-second (100 milliseconds) rule used to determine false starts. The host, Joe Posnanski, along with Mathieu Miloz, a sports scientist, dissect the scientific basis—or lack thereof—behind this rule.

[08:26] Tynea Gaither: "It's designed to prevent people from guessing when the gun goes off."

[10:18] Joe Posnanski: "There's so many things that need to happen just to get you out of the starting blocks."

Miloz explains the various components involved in a sprinter's reaction time, highlighting the complexity of accurately measuring it.

[09:05] Joe Posnanski: "There's time your ears have to convert that stimulus into a neural signal... the muscle itself to start contracting to move."

Despite this complexity, the widely accepted 0.1-second threshold lacks robust scientific backing, stemming instead from historical precedents rather than contemporary research.

---

Historical Foundation of the 0.1-Second Rule

The episode traces the origins of the reaction time rule back to the 1960s with the West German sprinter Armin Hari, known for his suspiciously fast starts. This led to the development and eventual adoption of technology that could purportedly measure false starts with precision.

[11:01] Tynea Gaither: "He did apparently have a really fast reaction time. They tested him, though we don't know exactly how accurate that was."

According to historian PJ Wiesell, the 0.1-second limit was established by the company Jum Hans, which, after testing, claimed no human could start faster than this threshold. This rule was formalized by World Athletics (formerly IAAF) in 1989 without substantial scientific evidence.

[12:26] Joe Posnanski: "But the main study that other people point to is this study on eight amateur sprinters, which is just a really small sample size."

---

Expert Insights and Challenges

Experts interviewed in the episode cast doubt on the scientific rigor behind the current false start rules. Mathieu Miloz emphasizes that the 0.1-second limit is not grounded in comprehensive scientific research.

[13:11] Joe Posnanski: "He argues that this tenth of a second limit is just not based in rigorous science."

Additionally, a 2009 study commissioned by World Athletics suggested that the 0.1-second limit may be inaccurate, but it was deemed too insufficiently powered to warrant a rule change.

[14:09] Tynea Gaither: "I actually came across a study that was commissioned by World Athletics itself in 2009, and that study said the 10th of a second limit is incorrect."

---

Technology’s Impact on Sports Rules

The podcast explores the broader implications of technology in sports, arguing that an overreliance on technological precision can undermine the spirit of competition. Noam Hassenfeld and Joe Posnanski discuss how excessive technological scrutiny can detract from the natural flow and enjoyment of sports.

[22:54] Noam Hassenfeld: "His foot will bounce off the bag for, like, the smallest amount. I mean, a millimeter, you might have got him."

Examples from baseball, basketball, and football illustrate how technology complicates rule enforcement and diminishes the human element of sports.

---

Potential Solutions and Fairness

In seeking solutions, Mathieu Miloz advocates for more rigorous and scientifically robust studies involving elite athletes to accurately determine reaction time limits.

[17:03] Joe Posnanski: "He wants to make sure researchers can control for all those variables with the sensors and really just find a gold standard to agree on that this is the best way to record a race start."

Alternatively, some suggest removing the strict reaction time limit altogether, allowing races to proceed based purely on the official gunshot without penalizing near-threshold starts. However, this approach raises concerns about increased false starts and the potential chaos it could introduce.

[27:36] Tynea Gaither: "Without this reaction time limit, both of these other options might actually incentivize runners to anticipate the gun."

Ultimately, Joe Posnanski and Tynea Gaither conclude that no existing solution perfectly addresses the issue, advocating instead for a balanced approach that acknowledges the inherent imperfections in enforcing perfect fairness.

---

Conclusion

"Jumping the Gun" underscores the complexities and controversies surrounding the enforcement of false start rules in sprinting. Through Tynea Gaither’s personal experience and expert discussions, the episode reveals significant gaps in the scientific justification of current standards. The debate highlights the ongoing tension between maintaining fairness through technological precision and preserving the fundamental human aspects of sports. As World Athletics considers potential rule changes, this episode calls for a more nuanced and scientifically grounded approach to ensure the integrity of competitive racing.

---

Notable Quotes:

• Tynea Gaither [03:12]: "These moments are everything to us."
• Joe Posnanski [10:18]: "There's so many things that need to happen just to get you out of the starting blocks."
• Mathieu Miloz [13:11]: "He argues that this tenth of a second limit is just not based in rigorous science."
• Noam Hassenfeld [22:54]: "His foot will bounce off the bag for, like, the smallest amount..."

---

Further Engagement:

For more insights and episodes like this, follow Pablo Torre Finds Out on YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter. Subscribe to Pablo's newsletter for the latest updates.

Transcript

[Pablo Torre]

Hello, it is. It is I. It is me. Either way, it's Pablo. Listen, it's been a hell of a two weeks here at Pablo Torre finds out my brain is a little broken by that, as the intro to this might suggest. And we'll get to all of the stuff that has been developing in these last several days with the NFLPA and more in coming episodes in coming weeks. But today we wanted to bring you something different and also give our overworked and underrated staff some time off. And what we have for you today is an episode from one of our kindred spirits over at vox. This is an episode of a show called Unexplainable, in which they use science multiple times a week to tell a story, to explain something. And this episode just happens to be a sports episode. It happens to be about an object I've long been fascinated by. And that object happens to be a gun.

[Home Depot Ad]

Right now at the Home Depot, you'll find storage solutions made to fit your needs. Grab an HDX tough tote to protect your tools, or keep your sports equipment contained with reinforced snap fit lids. Or stack up and make better use of your space with bins and totes built to last. Whatever your story, we've got the gear to keep it organized and protected at the Home Home Depot. How Doers Get More Done.

[Shopify Ad]

Starting a business can seem like a daunting task unless you have a partner like Shopify. They have the tools you need to start and grow your business. From designing a website to marketing to selling and beyond, Shopify can help with everything you need. There's a reason millions of companies like Mattel, Heinz and Allbirds continue to trust and use them. With Shopify on your side, turn your big business idea into Sign up for your $1 per month [e-mail] SpecialOffer this.

[Progressive Insurance Ad]

Episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial geniuses. Monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to Progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.

[Tynea Gaither]

There's Confident and then there's Tynea Gaither.

When I was younger, I used to beat up on the boys in pe and ever since then, like I've been addicted to what I do.

What she does is sprint for Team Bahamas at the highest level.

I love the adrenaline rush that I get every time I line up. I love making my family and my country proud. I wouldn't choose any other Career for myself right now.

Back in July, Tynea was gearing up for a huge race in Oregon.

This was the world championships, which is the biggest championship that we have as professional sprinters for the year.

Tynea had been training for months, day after day to get ready for this championship and she'd reached the semifinals of the hundred meter dash.

These moments are everything to us.

It was a Beautiful day, high 70s, clear blue sky, got out on the track.

Everything was perfect. I was really zoned in to this race because I knew what I was capable of. I knew that I was ready to run the race of my life.

[Commentator]

Tanya Gaither of the Bahamas, she lined.

[Tynea Gaither]

Up in the second lane twice. A World Championship finalist, over 210 was locked in.

If you go back and watch the video, you can just see how like tense my face looks. I'm like, okay, yeah, like this is going to be great.

She made sure to do her pre race ritual.

My teammates like to laugh at me about that. I slap my legs and I throw my arms up in the air and throw them back over my head and just do like a little shimmy with my shoulders and then I get into the blocks.

She set up in the blocks, one leg in front, one leg behind, with both her hands on the ground in front of her.

I heard the crowd go quiet. Of course you can hear, you know, a few murmurs or whatever, but that's normal. And you know when everybody gets set and still, only when everybody's still, they'll say set and you'll come up in your set position. And then I heard the gun go off and I took off and then I heard the gun go off again and then I stopped.

At this point, it was all confusion. That second gun was officials stopping the race because someone had broken a rule.

[Shopify Ad]

Can't see from this angle.

[Commentator]

No, I'm not sure I can see that to the naked eye either.

[Tynea Gaither]

It's a bit hard to hear, but behind the voices of the commentators, you can just make out an in stadium announcement. False start, line two.

[Commentator]

Yeah, it's coming up on our screen.

[Tynea Gaither]

A false start means that Tania didn't wait for the gun before she reacted. She started too early.

I couldn't believe it because I just knew it wasn't me. There was no way. I've never false started ever in my life.

After a false start, all the runners have to line up again and restart, but without Tainia this time. Because once you false start, you're immediately disqualified.

I thought it was an error.

[Commentator]

It wasn't immediately obvious. To the naked eye, I'd quite like to see that again.

[Tynea Gaither]

I knew I started once I heard that gun go off.

[Commentator]

That one was so tight. I think it was indiscernible.

[Tynea Gaither]

The crowd was like, no, no, like you didn't fall.

[Commentator]

Starred crowd don't like it.

[Tynea Gaither]

They was like, protest, protest. No, you didn't do anything. And then I was like, okay, no, I'd like to protest.

[Commentator]

Okay, so this might take a little while.

[Tynea Gaither]

Tynea walked off the track to make her case to the official, and he.

Has a little screen that shows him the video replay.

[Commentator]

Wow, that's so marvelous. That's really hard to tell with the naked eye.

[Tynea Gaither]

Literally looked like I did nothing wrong.

But the official wasn't just looking at the replay.

He also showed me my reaction time and it was like lit up in red, which means basically the start was just too fast.

Pressure sensors in the starting blocks showed that Tania had started 0.093 seconds after the gun went off.

After the gun went off. Like, I'm mind blown. You're telling me I'm penalized for something I did after the gun went off?

[Commentator]

Just a reminder, I know many of you will be familiar with this. If it's quicker than a tenth of a second, it's a deemed to be illegal.

[Tynea Gaither]

Tania was officially disqualified for reacting 7,000ths of a second quicker than the legal limit.

According to what they were trying to tell us. No human can possibly move that fast without anticipating it.

The officials were saying that because it's impossible to react within a tenth of a second, Tinea must have started before the gun went off, even if no one could see it. They were basically telling Tania, you didn't wait for the gun to go off before you started. You cheated. You guessed.

There was no guessing in my start. My coach trains us to wait until we hear the start. In fact, sometimes she'll hold it extra long for us just to see if we would jump out the block. So we train to make sure that we don't throw away our opportunities.

Tainia wasn't the only one who was disqualified for a false start after the gun at these world championships. It happened to Julian Alfred, who started 0.095 seconds after the gun.

[Commentator]

She's right in the center of your picture in the white. Yes, it's very, very, very marginal.

[Tynea Gaither]

And then it happened to Devin Allen, who started 0.099 seconds after the gun. And he is faster than that tenth of a second allowance.

[Joe Posnanski]

You know how much faster he is by one thousandth of A second.

[Tynea Gaither]

I just saw the start of finish say I'm sorry. All three of these sprinters started after the gun and all three of them were disqualified in some of the biggest races of the year.

[Commentator]

I really don't like seeing people disqualified. Having said that, rules are rules, aren't they?

[Tynea Gaither]

You're right, but I just couldn't understand what they were saying.

I'm Noam Hassenfeld and this week on Unexplainable. How fast can humans react? And is a rule like this actually fit Bear? Okay. Brian Nom. There's this rule in running that we've both been thinking about for a while.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Tynea Gaither]

It's designed to prevent people from guessing when the gun goes off. And it all relies on the assumption that it's impossible to react in less than a tenth of a second. That people who start that quickly are actually starting in their heads before the gun. So I wanted to ask you about the science here. Like, does this idea of a limit to human reaction time make sense?

[Joe Posnanski]

Yes, the concept behind this rule does make sense. You can't react instantly to a sound.

[Mathieu Miloz]

There is a neurophysiological limits that need to be defined to prevent some athletes to have an unfair advantage by anticipating the gun.

[Joe Posnanski]

So I found a scientist who's doing his PhD on this exact question. His name is Mathieu Meloz.

[Mathieu Miloz]

My name is Mathieu Miloz.

[Joe Posnanski]

He's French. So I apologize if I said his name wrong. And he thinks this idea of setting a limit makes sense because reacting to a gun just takes time.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right.

[Joe Posnanski]

There's so many things that need to happen just to get you out of the starting blocks.

[Mathieu Miloz]

There is like different component to the response time.

[Joe Posnanski]

So first the gun goes off. There's time it takes for that sound of the gun to get into your ears. So there is the time your ears have to convert that stimulus into a neural signal. Then there is the time your nervous system has to identify that signal, send a command down to your muscles to start moving. And that takes some time. And then there's time for like the muscle itself to start contracting to move.

[Mathieu Miloz]

And then there is the time like.

[Joe Posnanski]

You actually exerting force on the starting blocks that would detect your movement.

[Mathieu Miloz]

So there is all these different components. It's complex.

[Joe Posnanski]

So this idea of a limit in sprinting makes sense. But what I just cannot figure out is where this number 10th of a second, where does that come from?

[Tynea Gaither]

So I looked into this. I talked to a historian who wrote a report about this for World Athletics, which is the organization that runs these World Championships we've been talking about. His name is PJ Wiesell and he told me that it actually traces all the way back to the 60s and this West German sprinter named Armin Hari.

[Joe Posnanski]

He had surging power and explosive pace, but he also possessed the most dubious style starting technique that international sprinting has ever seen.

[Tynea Gaither]

Hari was famous for being a suspiciously fast starter.

[Joe Posnanski]

His fellow Germans called him the thief of starts.

[Tynea Gaither]

He did apparently have a really fast reaction time. They tested him, though we don't know exactly how accurate that was.

[Commentator]

Many believe he actually beats the gun.

[Tynea Gaither]

Ultimately, we don't know if Hari was guessing his starts or if he just had superhuman reflexes. But in 1960, he won a bunch of races, got called for some false starts and people were pissed because back then you didn't get immediately disqualified for your first false start. They would just run the race again. Oh, okay. So it got a little messy. And West Germany, they wanted something more objective. So they got these force sensors that could automatically detect when someone started. And this tenth of a second limit basically comes from the company that designed them. The traditional brand, Jum Hans, has been a trailblazer and watch design for 160 years that said that they had tested a bunch of runners and found that no one could start faster than a tenth of a second.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay.

[Tynea Gaither]

So that sort of like company finding became the basis for this rule of thumb that continued for a couple decades until 1989 when World Athletics, then known as IAAF, made it official.

[Joe Posnanski]

So when Tainea was disqualified and told, you couldn't have possibly started that fast.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right.

[Joe Posnanski]

That was just based on something a German company said in the 1960s?

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah, basically.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay.

[Tynea Gaither]

That's what this historian told me. World Athletics has said it's based on science. So I reached out to them and they told me that a tenth of a second was determined to be the, quote, minimum auditory reaction time. But they didn't point to a specific study.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay.

[Tynea Gaither]

The main study that other people point to is this study on eight amateur sprinters, which is just a really small sample size. And it also seems like the study came out after they made the rule. So I just basically have a ton of questions about the science here.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay. So this whole story you're telling me makes perfect sense, considering when I asked Matthew about this number, like, do you think it's valid?

[Mathieu Miloz]

He told me the 100 millisecond false start threshold is not science based.

[Joe Posnanski]

He argues that this tenth of a second limit is just not based in rigorous science.

[Tynea Gaither]

Okay.

[Joe Posnanski]

And we really don't Know what the actual number is, what the limit ought to be? If you look at the scientific literature, you can find there have been a bunch of studies that try to answer the question how fast someone can start a race, and they all kind of find slightly different numbers. People can start faster than 0.1 seconds. Uh, Matt Chu says he's even found this in his own work.

[Mathieu Miloz]

I'm sure that you can react in less than 100 milliseconds in spring start.

[Joe Posnanski]

And there's no paper you can go to that has, like, the gold standard for studying how fast people can start. There's a lot of small studies on this. They find different numbers. So there's just not a lot of confidence from the scientific community that World Athletics has, like, correct firm number here.

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah. I actually came across a study that was commissioned by World athletics itself in 2009, and that study said the 10th of a second limit is incorrect.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, so they know this, apparently.

[Tynea Gaither]

And I asked them about that, but they said this study was too small to actually merit a rule change.

[Joe Posnanski]

So do a better study.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right. I mean, given that all of these studies are so small, it makes me wonder, like, is reaction time in a race a particularly hard thing to study?

[Joe Posnanski]

When I asked met you about this, he explained it. It's very complicated. There are just a lot of variables to control for. So one thing here is that depending on how loud the start sound is, people might start faster.

[Tynea Gaither]

Like a startle response or something.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, well, it's just like if it's louder, people seem to start faster. And then the longer the official wait, the faster the start times can be because you're just so ready to start.

[Tynea Gaither]

It's like a spring being coiled up or something. Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

And then when it comes to these sensors themselves, apparently how they decide when a start happens can be very variable between sensors. There doesn't seem to be enough consistency here in either the science or the practice to really exactly nail down a number.

[Tynea Gaither]

So if this tenth of a second limit isn't based on rigorous science, do we have a sense of what a better general area of rightness might be?

[Joe Posnanski]

So I asked Matthew this question and.

[Mathieu Miloz]

He said, if I give you a number or no, I will kind of lie to you.

[Joe Posnanski]

If I gave you a number, I would be lying to you. If you look around, there are some scientists who have done some, like, back of the napkin calculations, you know, that whole list of things that I outlined that need to happen before you can start a race. Some say that could take 85 milliseconds. So 15 milliseconds faster than you know what is allowed. But then again, like Met you was very insistent on this. Like, there's no perfect way to measure anything, so any measurement is going to come with some range of error. At the same time, Met you thinks it's important to get a better range of what the limit could be because the victories here can be decided by hundredths thousandth of a second.

[Mathieu Miloz]

The margin of victory is so small in sprint that I think it's worth to try to improve this.

[Joe Posnanski]

Met you basically thinks that improving on this number and getting a better estimate of it will really make races fair.

[Tynea Gaither]

So is there a way to get a better sense of what this limit might be, or is it just too many moving parts?

[Joe Posnanski]

He just wants to make this research a lot more rigorous.

[Tynea Gaither]

Okay.

[Joe Posnanski]

He really wants to take the fastest elite athletes and bring them into the lab.

[Tynea Gaither]

So not amateurs anymore?

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, not using amateurs.

[Mathieu Miloz]

Top level sprinters reacts quicker than you.

[Joe Posnanski]

And me, it turns out, on the track, like during a competition. There's some evidence that suggests that runners are not starting as fast as they possibly could because they just don't want to risk false starting.

[Mathieu Miloz]

They prefer to delay their response time to not be disqualified.

[Joe Posnanski]

That's why he wants to bring them to the lab and say, okay, okay, everyone, don't worry about false starts. We just want to see how fast you could possibly start and just collect a lot of data on some of the fastest people in the world. He wants to make sure researchers can control for all those variables with the sensors and really just find a gold standard to agree on that this is the best way to record a race start and then plot that data in a distribution curve and see really where we can better decide on where the limit is.

[Tynea Gaither]

Okay.

[Joe Posnanski]

And he also thinks that we've been measuring sprint starts in just the wrong place.

[Tynea Gaither]

What do you mean?

[Joe Posnanski]

So far we've been talking about the feet. You know, like when your foot moves, like that's when the race starts. But he says, like, the actual first thing that moves when you start to run are your hands.

[Tynea Gaither]

Like you're crouched in the starting blocks. Your two hands are on the ground in front of you and you're pushing off with your hands. Yeah, yeah.

[Mathieu Miloz]

They push on the floor first, so.

[Joe Posnanski]

That is the first movement you do. And like he says, that is much faster.

[Mathieu Miloz]

I have a difference, an average difference, about 50 milliseconds between the impulse in the legs and the impulse on the floor that react first.

[Tynea Gaither]

So that's like a huge difference.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, maybe that's where we should decide where the race starts.

[Tynea Gaither]

So that all sounds great.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay.

[Tynea Gaither]

But to be honest, like, I'm not actually sure more science and more technology is the whole answer here.

[Joe Posnanski]

Isn't the answer usually more science? We need more science. Don't we say that on the show?

[Tynea Gaither]

Like everybody, it's definitely often science. But when it comes to sports, I mean, I think using technology in the name of fairness, it's harder than you think. And there's an argument that sort of a hyper focus on technology might actually be ruining sports a bit.

[Joe Posnanski]

Oh, I want to hear that.

[Tynea Gaither]

I'll tell you after the break. So he yells out, ready on your mark, get set. And I was so keyed up, I just took off. So we've got this rule that really seems to be unscientific to say the least and honestly kind of unfair. And there's rumblings that World Athletics might be considering changing it. A World Athletics Council member from Finland actually called for a rule change on this and the president of World Athletics.

[Commentator]

Said, and yeah, the four start rule I'm sure will be looked at by the competition commission and everything is on the table as it always is after a championship.

[Tynea Gaither]

World Athletics actually sent me a great statement on this which said, quote, it is standard procedure after each world championships for the World Athletics Competition Commission to review the championships and recommend any rule changes.

[Joe Posnanski]

So they're not saying anything?

[Tynea Gaither]

Not really. So until they do figure out how to change this, I guess I was wondering if we could try to figure out how we might get to a perfectly fair race.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. Like, what are the options here?

[Tynea Gaither]

Okay, so on the one hand we've got Matthew, right. He wants to use more science, more technology to kind of get finer distinctions on this limit. You know, take this kind of non scientific 10th of a second limit and bring it, you know, firmly into the realm of science, rigorous science, like you said.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Tynea Gaither]

And that's broadly what a lot of the people I spoke to also told me. So the historian I talked to, pj, he said he wanted a lower, more precise limit. I talked to a sports scientist, Matt Payne, who said the same thing. And they both said we also need more transparency around exactly how these machines work.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Tynea Gaither]

So, you know, we can hold them accountable.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. We need to know, like, each machine is making the same decision around, like when that person started.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right. And that's actually what some people think happened at the World Championships with Tynea and these other runners, that something must have been up with the machines because reaction times were just like super fast across the Board. And honestly, I think that's a key problem with having this really strictly enforced limit. Because applying this tiny distinction across tons of machines perfectly consistently without any error is clearly showing itself to be really difficult.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah.

[Tynea Gaither]

And it's also always possible that someone can come along, you know, with just superhuman reaction time and slightly. Just slightly break this limit. Whatever we find. Yeah.

[Joe Posnanski]

And the limit is always gonna be a fuzzy number anyway.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right. And, you know, if you draw a clear line in the middle of what is ultimately just a fuzzy border, and someone is barely on the other side of that clear line, like, is it really enough to label them a cheater?

[Joe Posnanski]

I don't know. Yeah.

[Tynea Gaither]

Like, technology doesn't necessarily make fuzzy borders go away.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Sports have not been created or invented to deal with the technology that we have today.

[Tynea Gaither]

So I talked to this sports writer, Joe Posnanski. He's written a lot about the use of technology in sports. Joe says that, like, technology can give us a lot more data, but it's not always clear that more data equals more accuracy, especially when we're dealing with sort of fuzzy borders. And sports, which are ultimately. They're games, right. They're not scientific experiments.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

There is a way to break down the context of any game to a point where it's no longer a game, where it no longer makes any sense.

[Joe Posnanski]

I think it's kind of funny. We've been talking to scientists who the answer to this question is, well, we just need more precise sensors. We need better science. We need more, you know, data, data, data. And I'm sure that's fun for them, right?

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah. And Joe told me that it can cause some real problems in baseball.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

For example, used to be that a guy stole a base and the tag was late, he was safe. That's how that worked.

[Tynea Gaither]

So as long as you're touching the base, you're safe.

[Joe Posnanski]

That's the one thing I know about baseball.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right. That's the main rule of baseball.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

But now, if you slow it down enough, you'll see that occasionally the guy, when he slides into second base, just.

[Tynea Gaither]

For a fraction of a second, for just a moment, watch this.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

His foot will bounce off the bag for, like, the smallest amount. I mean, a millimeter, you might have got him.

[Tynea Gaither]

And what happens in baseball now sometimes is they go to this, like, instant replay review. And then the ump's like, he's out now. So there you go. It's happened many times in replay.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

That's not the way the game was intended to be played. Nobody ever even knew this existed.

[Tynea Gaither]

And they Stopped the game for, like.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

A while, you know, Instead it becomes this. People just poring over it like it's the Zapruder film trying to figure out, is this guy safe? Is this guy out? Isn't that great?

[Joe Posnanski]

You know, I'm realizing that if we went the max technology limit and you actually got to an absurdly small view, you would see that actually we don't touch anything.

[Tynea Gaither]

Matter is mostly empty space. It's just electromagnetism that's convincing us we're touching, right?

[Joe Posnanski]

Yes.

[Tynea Gaither]

No runner is ever touching a base, and no fielder is ever tagging a runner.

[Joe Posnanski]

This is a little. I think we got a little too deep for this topic, but I see what you mean in that. Like, there's always going to be, like, the closer you zoom into things you see actually, like, our experience of that thing, like, touching a base is not necessarily what's happening on a microscopic view.

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah. And it's not just baseball either. Like, in basketball, there are these endless replay reviews on fouls. I get so bored of these replays.

[Commentator]

They got a great game going.

[Tynea Gaither]

Again, it's a gray area of, like, what is a foul?

[Commentator]

Is that an offensive foul?

[Mathieu Miloz]

Or.

[Commentator]

I don't know.

[Tynea Gaither]

And then in football, there's this kind of, like, deeply philosophical issue of what is a catch? What?

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, like, it used to be it's in your hands.

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah. It seems like this really simple idea, like, are you holding the ball? But now it's like the runner did not come complete. The catch during the process of the catch.

[Joe Posnanski]

Okay.

[Tynea Gaither]

If you zoom in really close, is the ball moving a tiny little bit when you hit the ground?

[Joe Posnanski]

Like, even though it's in your hands.

[Tynea Gaither]

Even though it's in your hands, and even though, like, it was always considered a catch before, and you've got to.

[Commentator]

Continue through the play.

[Joe Posnanski]

We will now review the previous play.

[Tynea Gaither]

I don't want to sound like technology is really bad. You know, it has its place in sports, especially when the lines aren't as fuzzy. So, like, who finishes a race first seems a lot easier to judge on replay than who started. Or like tennis, where you know whether a ball is in or out, like, that's a pretty clear decision. But using fancy technology and tons of camera angles on things like the start of a race or what is a catch in football, it can end up being really disappointing to fans because, you know, you're expecting this clear, objective result from all this technology, and it's just a fuzzy border. Like, technology can't solve this problem.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah. We signed up to come To a game, not to a, you know, slide presentation.

[Tynea Gaither]

It's. It's. Yeah, it's like something you would do in a lab. It's not something you want to do, you know, in an arena.

[Joe Posnanski]

So should we just throw out all the sensors, the cameras, everything, and just go out there and have fun?

[Tynea Gaither]

So I think there's a couple things we could do here. So we could throw out the limit entirely. Like just go back to the eye test to see who false started. Yeah, but this sports scientist I talked to told me that, like, people's perception of movement can actually be different. So some people could actually be better at spotting movement in other people.

[Joe Posnanski]

You're introducing yet another complication to when does a race start?

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah, and we could also, like, keep these pressure sensors, but just get rid of this tenth of a second reaction time limit. Like just have the race start when the gun goes off and just say, that's. That's it.

[Joe Posnanski]

That makes sense to me. You know, like not. Not giving people, you know, penalties for these apparent thought crimes that they, you know, started before the gun in their head.

[Tynea Gaither]

Right. That's intuitive. Right. Like, that's what we think a race should be. But without this reaction time limit, both of these other options might actually incentivize runners to anticipate the gun. Like to guess when the gun would go off.

[Joe Posnanski]

Is it a huge problem to anticipate the gun? Couldn't that just be a part of the race?

[Tynea Gaither]

Well, it's against the rules, for one thing, but it could also just make races super chaotic. Like, there'd be false starts and restarts all the time. I don't really think races would want to incentivize that.

[Joe Posnanski]

Wouldn't runners still just get disqualified? There's still a big cost for jumping the gun.

[Tynea Gaither]

Yeah, there's a big cost, but the people I talked to said they think runners would risk it. Like, if you're racing someone who's just way faster than you and your only shot is to anticipate the gun, you might just risk it even if you could get disqualified. And then some people probably wouldn't risk it. So, you know, if we're looking for the fairest possible race, like one where every single person is being timed from the gun to the finish line, I don't really think the answer is taking away the limit and maybe encouraging people to jump the gun more.

[Joe Posnanski]

I think every option here will fail us in some way. It's just deciding which failure feels like sports.

[Tynea Gaither]

I think that's exactly right. And that's something that Joe said to me, he basically said, there's no way.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

To make sports perfectly fair. What you want to do is make it fair enough that people have faith in it, but we accept the illusion.

[Tynea Gaither]

So Joe's favorite solution for fuzzy borders in sports like baseball and football is just to accept the gray area. Let the official watch the replay in real time, no slow mo. And if the call can't be overturned, just stick with the call in the field. Because perfectly fair isn't possible.

[Joe Posnanski]

Yeah, I think perfect fairness is impossible, but at least with this false start rule, we could probably make it a little fairer.

[Tynea Gaither]

We definitely can. Especially because we know this reaction time limit isn't right. So lowering the limit seems like a clear move. Yeah, we can embrace the fact that we'll probably need to keep updating it over time. And then ultimately, if we're honest about the fact that when a race starts is kind of this fuzzy border, we'll end up labeling fewer people cheaters who probably didn't cheat.

It's still embarrassing because, you know, you don't want to ever be labeled as somebody that cheated.

Tynia is still thinking about her false start at the world championships in July when officials said she started before hearing the gun.

I literally waited till I heard what I needed to hear, just like I have done in hundreds of other races.

For a while, it was hard to shake.

You know, I haven't really shared this with many people, but I've kind of been experiencing a little PTSD with it because now when I get in my blocks, the only thing that I'm thinking about in my blocks is be patient. That's literally the thing that's been engraved in my head since that moment. Be patient, because you can't afford for that to happen again. I'm one of true lovers of this sport. I love what I do. And as big of a blow as that was, it hasn't changed my eagerness to step on the line.

And last month in August, she. She was back on the blocks at another big race. Brittney Brown followed closely by Tania Gaither, 19 1. She took home a silver medal, running a personal best in the 200 meter dash. But the thought of that false start after the gun in July, it's still lingering in the back of her head. So at the end of all this, I told her about our reporting and all the people we've talked to. I guess it doesn't seem to me like you cheated.

Yes, that's how I feel. But I guess the data says I cheated.

And you know, I think based on the science here, we have good reason to say Tania Gaither is not a cheater.

Wow. Well, I really appreciate that. I would love for the world to see that research.

[Joe Posnanski]

This episode was reported and produced by Noam Hassenfeld and me, Brian Resnik. It was edited by Meredith Hotenot and Kathryn Wells. Noam wrote the music, Efim Shapiro did the mixing and sound design, and Serena Solon checked the facts. Mandy Nguyen is growing magic beans in her backyard, Christian Ayala is hanging out on the other side of the world from us, and Bird Pinkerton hasn't found treasure in the woods yet, but she did find a mysterious key. Special thanks to PJ Veazel, Matt Payne and Robert Johnson for their help this week. If you have thoughts about this episode or ideas for the show, please email us. We're unexplainableox.com we'd also love it if you wrote us a review or rating. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and we'll be back next week.