Episode Transcript
Transcripts are displayed as originally observed. Some content, including advertisements may have changed.
Use Ctrl + F to search
0:00
Whole Foods Market has the satisfying
0:02
lunch you're looking for. Level up lunch
0:04
boxes with Wallet Happy 365 by
0:06
Whole Foods Market snacks, like organic
0:09
vanilla animal cookies, organic string
0:11
cheese, and more. Hey, you have
0:13
to eat too! Hit the prepared foods department
0:15
and try the spicy red pepper salmon, or
0:18
treat yourself to pizza from the hot bar.
0:20
Either way, remember to bring home a rosemary
0:23
lemon chicken family meal for an easy
0:25
dinner that hits the spot. Shake things
0:27
up at Whole Foods Market. Ten years
0:29
ago, Chance the Rapper released a mixtape
0:31
called Acid Rap. It
0:34
was full of a certain joy and exuberance that
0:36
feels lacking in hip-hop today. I
0:39
asked him why that is. I think it's just
0:41
worse. Like, I think it's
0:43
just worse in terms of public
0:46
safety. You know, even the weather,
0:49
like the earth is not as lit as
0:51
it was in 2013. Chance
0:55
the Rapper
0:56
on how hip-hop has changed. This
0:58
week on Intuit, Vulture's pop
1:00
culture podcast.
1:05
This week is the start of the World Athletics
1:07
Championships in Hungary. It's the biggest
1:10
track and field competition of the year. And
1:12
we wanted to bring you an episode we first made during
1:15
last year's championships, when what seemed
1:17
like it should be the simplest possible
1:19
rule led to a full-blown
1:21
scandal. That is as tough a
1:24
break as I have ever seen in this sport. The
1:26
controversy got to the heart of one of the most basic
1:29
questions in sports. When
1:31
does a race actually start?
1:37
There's confident, and then there's Tania
1:39
Gaither. When I was younger, I used to beat up on
1:41
the boys in PE. And ever since then, like, I've
1:43
been addicted to what I do. What
1:46
she does is sprint for Team Bahamas
1:48
at the highest level. I love the adrenaline
1:51
rush that I get every time I line up. I love making
1:53
my family and my country proud. I wouldn't
1:56
choose any other career for myself right now.
1:58
Last July, Tania was gearing up for
2:00
a huge race in Oregon. This
2:03
was the World Championships, which is the biggest championship
2:05
that we have as professional sprinters for
2:07
the year. Tania had been training for months,
2:10
day after day, to get ready for this championship.
2:13
And she'd reached the semifinals of the
2:15
100-meter dash.
2:16
These moments are everything to us.
2:19
It was a beautiful day, high
2:21
70s, clear blue sky. Got out on the track.
2:23
Everything was perfect. I was really zoned in to
2:25
this race because I knew what I was capable of. I knew
2:27
that I was ready to run the race of my life.
2:29
Tania Gaetha at the Bahamas.
2:31
She lined up in the second lane. Twice a
2:34
World Championship finalist over 200. And
2:36
Tania was locked in. If you
2:38
go back and watch the video, you can just see how tense
2:40
my face looks. I'm like, okay, yeah, this is
2:42
gonna be great. She made sure to do her pre-race
2:45
ritual. My teammates like to laugh at me about
2:47
that. I slap my legs
2:49
and I throw my arms up in the air and throw them back over
2:52
my head and just do a little shimmy with
2:54
my shoulders. And then I get into the blocks.
2:56
She set up in the blocks, one leg in front,
2:59
one leg behind with both her hands
3:01
on the ground in front of her. I heard the
3:03
crowd go quiet. Of course you can hear a few
3:05
murmurs or whatever, but that's normal. And
3:08
when everybody gets set and still, only
3:10
when everybody's still, they'll stay
3:13
set and you'll come up in your set
3:15
position. And then I heard
3:17
the gun go off and I took off
3:20
and then I heard the gun go off again and then I
3:22
stopped.
3:22
At this point,
3:25
it was all confusion. That second
3:27
gun was officials stopping the race because
3:29
someone had broken a rule. I can't see from
3:32
this angle. No, I'm not sure
3:34
I can see that to the naked eye either. It's
3:36
a bit hard to hear, but behind the voices
3:38
of the commentators, you can just make out
3:41
an in-stadium announcement. By the way, this
3:43
is a brilliant. False
3:45
start, line two. It's
3:50
coming up on our screen. A false
3:52
start means that Tania didn't wait for
3:54
the gun before she reacted. She
3:56
started too early.
3:57
I couldn't believe it because
3:59
I just knew it wasn't. There was no way.
4:01
I've never fall started ever in my life.
4:03
After a fall start, all the runners have to line
4:06
up again and restart. But without
4:08
Tania this time, because once you fall
4:10
start, you're immediately disqualified. I
4:13
thought it was an error. It wasn't
4:15
immediately obvious to the naked eye. I'd
4:18
quite like to see that again. I knew
4:20
I started once I heard that gun go off. That
4:22
one was so tight, I think it was indiscernible.
4:25
The crowd was like, no, no,
4:27
like, you didn't fall start. The crowd don't like
4:29
it. They was like, protest, protest, no, you
4:31
didn't do anything. And
4:34
then I was like, okay, you know, I'd like to protest. Okay,
4:37
so this might take a little while. Tania
4:39
walked off the track to make her case to the official.
4:42
And he has a little screen that shows him the video
4:44
replay. Wow, that's so much. That's
4:47
really hard to tell with the naked eye. Literally
4:49
looked like I did nothing wrong. But the official
4:52
wasn't just looking at the replay. He
4:54
also showed me my reaction time and
4:57
it was like lit up in red. Which
4:59
means, you know, basically the start was just too
5:01
fast. Pressure sensors in the starting
5:04
blocks showed that Tania had started .093 seconds
5:09
after the gun went off. After the
5:11
gun went off. Like, I'm mind
5:13
blown. You're telling me I'm penalized
5:15
for something I did after the gun went
5:18
off.
5:19
Just a reminder, I know many of you will
5:21
be familiar with this. If it's quicker than a tenth
5:24
of a second, it seems to be illegal.
5:27
Tania was officially disqualified
5:29
for reacting seven thousandths of a second
5:31
quicker than the legal limit.
5:33
According to what they were trying to tell us, no
5:35
human can possibly move that fast without
5:38
anticipating it. The officials were saying
5:40
that because it's impossible to react within
5:42
a tenth of a second, Tania must
5:44
have started before the gun went off. Even
5:47
if no one could see it. They were basically
5:49
telling Tania, you didn't wait for
5:51
the gun to go off before you started. You
5:54
cheated.
5:55
You guessed. There was no guessing
5:57
in my start. My coach trains
5:59
us to. wait until we hear the start. In
6:01
fact, sometimes she'll hold it extra long for us
6:04
just to see if we would jump out the block. So we train
6:07
to make sure that we don't throw away our opportunities.
6:10
Tania wasn't the only one who was disqualified
6:13
for a false start after the gun at
6:15
these world championships. It happened
6:17
to Julian Alfred, who started .095 seconds after
6:19
the gun. She's
6:22
right in the center of your picture in the white. Yes. It's
6:25
very, very, very marginal. And
6:27
then it happened to Devon Allen, who started .099 seconds
6:30
after the gun. And
6:33
he is faster than that tenth
6:35
of a second allowance. You know how much faster
6:38
he is? By one thousandth
6:40
of a second.
6:40
I just sort of start official, say,
6:43
I'm sorry. All three of these sprinters
6:45
started after the gun, and all
6:47
three of them were disqualified in some of the biggest
6:50
races of the year. I really don't
6:52
like seeing people disqualified. Having said that,
6:54
rules are rules, aren't they? You're right.
6:57
But I just couldn't understand
6:59
what they were saying. I'm
7:02
Noam Hasenfeld, and this week on Unexplainable,
7:05
how fast can humans react? And
7:08
is a rule like this actually fair?
7:25
Okay, Brian. Noam? There's
7:27
this rule in running that we've both been thinking about for
7:29
a while. It's designed to prevent people
7:32
from guessing when the gun goes off. And
7:34
it all relies on the assumption that it's impossible
7:37
to react in less than a tenth of a second.
7:39
That people who start that quickly are actually starting
7:41
in their heads before the gun.
7:45
So I wanted to ask you about the science
7:47
here.
7:47
Does this idea of a limit to human reaction time
7:50
make sense?
7:51
Yes, the concept behind
7:53
this rule does make sense. You
7:55
can't react instantly to a
7:58
sound. physiological
8:00
limits that need to be defined
8:03
to prevent some athletes to have an unfair
8:05
advantage by
8:06
anticipating the gun. So I
8:09
found a scientist who's doing his PhD
8:11
on this exact question. His
8:14
name is Mathieu Melose. My name is Mathieu
8:16
Melose. He's French, so I apologize
8:18
if I've said his name wrong. And
8:21
he thinks this idea of setting a limit makes sense
8:24
because reacting to a gun just
8:26
takes time. Right, right. There's so many things
8:28
that need to happen just to get you out of the
8:30
starting blocks. There is like different
8:33
components to the response time. So
8:36
first the gun goes off. There's
8:40
time it takes for that sound
8:42
of the gun to get into your ears. So there is
8:44
no time. Your ears have to convert
8:47
that stimulus into a neural
8:49
signal. Then there is no time. Your
8:51
nervous system has to identify that signal. The
8:54
time. Send a command
8:56
down to your muscles to start moving. And
8:58
that takes some time. And then there's
9:00
time for like the muscle itself to start
9:02
contracting to move. And then there
9:05
is the
9:07
time. Like you actually
9:10
exerting force on the starting
9:12
blocks that would detect your movement.
9:15
So there is all these different components.
9:17
It's complex.
9:22
So this idea of a limit
9:24
in sprinting makes sense. But what I
9:26
just cannot figure out is where this number,
9:29
tenth of a second,
9:30
where does that come from? So I looked
9:33
into this. I talked to a historian who wrote a report
9:35
about this for World Athletics, which is the
9:37
organization that runs these world championships
9:39
we've been talking about. His name is PJ Vazel.
9:42
And he told me that it actually traces all
9:44
the way back to the 60s and
9:46
this West German sprinter named Armin Hari.
9:50
He had surging power and explosive
9:52
pace, but he also possessed the most
9:54
dubious starting technique that international
9:56
sprinting has ever seen. Hari was famous
9:59
for being a...
9:59
suspiciously fast starter. His
10:02
fellow Germans called him the thief of starts. He
10:04
did apparently have a really fast reaction
10:07
time. They tested him, though we don't know exactly
10:10
how accurate that was. Many believe
10:12
he actually beats the gun. Ultimately,
10:14
we don't know if Hari was guessing
10:17
his starts or if he just had superhuman reflexes,
10:20
but in 1960, he won a bunch of races,
10:22
got called for some false starts, and people
10:24
were pissed because back then,
10:27
you know, you didn't get immediately disqualified
10:30
for your first false start. They would just run the race again.
10:32
Oh, okay. So it got a little messy. And
10:35
West Germany, you know, they wanted something more objective,
10:37
so they got these force sensors that
10:39
could automatically detect when someone
10:42
started. And this 10th
10:44
of a second limit basically comes from the company
10:46
that designed them. The traditional
10:49
brand, Jumhans, has been a trailblazer
10:51
and watch design for 160 years. That
10:54
said that they had tested a bunch of runners
10:57
and found that no one could start faster than
10:59
a 10th of a second. Okay. So that sort
11:01
of like company finding
11:04
became the basis for this rule of
11:06
thumb that continued for a couple decades
11:08
until 1989 when world athletics, then
11:12
known as IAAF, made it official.
11:16
So when Tainio was disqualified
11:19
and told,
11:20
you couldn't have possibly started that fast.
11:22
Right. That was just based on something
11:25
a German company said in the
11:27
1960s. Yeah,
11:30
basically. Okay. That's what this historian
11:32
told me. World athletics has
11:34
said it's based on science. So I reached
11:36
out to them and they told me that a 10th of
11:39
a second was determined to be the quote, minimum
11:41
auditory reaction time. But
11:44
they didn't point to a specific study. Okay.
11:46
The main study that other people point to is this
11:48
study on eight amateur sprinters, which
11:51
is just a really small sample
11:53
size. And it also seems like the
11:55
study came out after they
11:57
made the rule. So I just basically have
11:59
a ton. of questions about the science here.
12:02
Okay, so this whole story you're telling
12:04
me makes perfect sense considering when
12:07
I asked Machu about this number, do
12:09
you think it's valid? He told me, The 100-millisecond
12:12
false start threshold is not
12:14
science-based. He argues that this tenth
12:16
of a second limit is just not
12:19
based in rigorous science. Okay. And
12:22
we really don't know what the actual
12:24
number is, what the limit ought to be. If
12:27
you look at the scientific literature, you can
12:29
find there have been a bunch of studies that try
12:31
to answer the question how fast someone
12:33
can start a race. And they
12:36
all kind of find slightly different numbers. People
12:39
can start faster than 0.1 seconds. Machu
12:42
says he's even found this
12:43
in his own work. I'm sure that you
12:46
can react in less than
12:48
100-milliseconds in spring
12:50
start. And there is no paper
12:53
you can go to that has the
12:55
gold standard for studying
12:58
how fast people can start. There's
13:00
a lot of small studies on this. They find
13:02
different numbers. So there's just not
13:05
a lot of confidence from the scientific
13:07
community that World Athletics has
13:10
a correct firm number here.
13:12
Yeah, I actually came across a study that
13:14
was commissioned by World Athletics itself
13:17
in 2009. And that
13:19
study said the tenth of a second limit
13:21
is incorrect. Oh, so they know this. Apparently.
13:24
And I asked them about that, but
13:26
they said this study was too small to
13:29
actually merit a rule change. So do a better
13:31
study. Right. I mean, given that
13:33
all of these
13:34
studies are so small, it makes me wonder, like,
13:37
is reaction time in a race a
13:39
particularly hard thing to study?
13:42
When I asked Machu about this, he explained
13:44
it. It's very complicated. There are just
13:46
a lot of variables to control for.
13:49
So one thing here is that depending
13:51
on how loud the start sound is, people
13:55
might start faster. Like a startle
13:57
response or something? Yeah. Well, it's just like if it's louder,
13:59
people. seem to start faster. And
14:01
then the longer the official weight,
14:04
the faster the start times can be because
14:07
you're just so ready to start. It's like
14:10
a spring being coiled up or something. Yeah.
14:12
And then when it comes to these sensors
14:14
themselves, apparently how
14:17
they decide when a start happens can
14:19
be very variable between sensors.
14:22
There doesn't seem to be enough consistency
14:24
here in either the science or the practice
14:27
to really exactly nail down a number.
14:30
So if this tenth of a second limit isn't
14:32
based on rigorous science, do
14:34
we have a sense of what a better
14:36
general area of rightness might
14:39
be?
14:39
So I asked Mathieu this
14:42
question and he said, if
14:44
I give you an number now, I will kind of
14:46
lie to you. If I gave you a number,
14:48
I would be lying to you. If
14:51
you look around, there are some scientists who have done
14:53
some back of the napkin calculations,
14:56
that whole list of things that I outlined
14:58
that need to happen before you can start a race. Some
15:01
say that could take 85 milliseconds,
15:03
so 15 milliseconds faster
15:05
than what is allowed. But
15:08
then again, Mathieu was
15:10
very insistent on this. There's no perfect
15:13
way to measure anything. So any measurement
15:15
is going to come with some range of error.
15:18
At the same time, Mathieu thinks it's important
15:20
to get a better
15:22
range of what the limit could be because
15:25
the victories here can be decided by
15:27
hundreds, thousands of a second.
15:29
The margin of victory is so small in
15:31
spring that
15:33
I think it's worth to try to improve
15:35
this. Mathieu basically thinks
15:37
that improving on this
15:40
number and getting a better estimate of
15:42
it will really make
15:44
races fair.
15:46
So is there a way to get a better sense
15:48
of what this limit might be
15:50
or is it just too many moving parts?
15:59
So not amateurs anymore. Yeah,
16:02
not using amateurs. Top-level printers
16:05
react
16:06
quicker than you want me. It turns out
16:08
on the track, during a competition, there's
16:10
some evidence that suggests that runners are not
16:13
starting as fast as they possibly could
16:15
because they just don't want to risk false starting.
16:18
They prefer to delay their response time
16:20
to not be disqualified. Ah. That's
16:23
why he wants to bring them to the lab and say, okay,
16:25
everyone, don't worry about false starts. We just want
16:27
to see how fast you could possibly
16:30
start and just collect a lot of data
16:32
on some of the fastest people in the world. He
16:34
wants to make sure researchers
16:37
can control for all those variables with
16:39
the sensors and really
16:41
just find a gold standard
16:43
to agree on that this is the best
16:45
way to record a race start. And
16:48
then plot that data in a distribution
16:50
curve and see really
16:53
where we can better decide on where the limit
16:55
is. Okay. He also thinks that we've
16:57
been measuring sprint starts in just
16:59
the wrong place.
17:01
What do you mean?
17:02
So far we've been talking about the feet. Right. You
17:04
know, like when your foot moves, like that's when the race starts. But
17:07
he says like the actual first thing that
17:09
moves when you start to run are your hands.
17:11
Like you're crouched in the starting blocks, your two
17:13
hands are on the ground in front of you and
17:15
you're pushing off with your hands. Yeah. Yeah,
17:18
they push on the floor first. So that is the
17:20
first movement you do. And like he
17:22
says that is much faster. I have a
17:24
difference, an average difference about 50
17:27
milliseconds between the impulse in the
17:29
legs and the impulse
17:31
on the floor that react first. So
17:34
that's like a huge difference. Yeah.
17:36
Maybe that's where we should decide where the race starts.
17:39
So
17:43
that all sounds great.
17:46
Okay. But to be honest, like I'm
17:48
not actually sure more science
17:50
and more technology is
17:53
the
17:53
whole answer here.
17:55
Isn't the answer usually more science?
17:58
We need more science. So we stay on the show. It's
18:01
definitely often science, but when
18:03
it comes to sports, I mean, I think using
18:06
technology in the name of fairness,
18:08
it's harder than you think. And there's
18:11
an argument that sort of a hyper-focus on
18:13
technology might actually
18:15
be ruining sports a
18:17
bit. Oh, I want to hear that.
18:20
I'll tell you after the break.
18:24
Whole Foods Market has a satisfying
18:26
lunch you're looking for. Level up lunch
18:28
boxes with Wallet Happy 365 by
18:30
Whole Foods Market snacks, like organic
18:33
vanilla animal cookies, organic string
18:35
cheese, and more. Hey, you have
18:37
to eat too. Hit the prepared food's department
18:39
and try the spicy red pepper salmon. Or
18:42
treat yourself to pizza from the hot bar.
18:44
Either way, remember to bring home a rosemary
18:47
lemon chicken family meal for an easy
18:49
dinner that hits the spot. Shake things
18:51
up at Whole Foods Market.
18:53
Imagine you
18:55
call a cab, and it pulls up to
18:57
the curb in front of your place, and
19:00
you get in, and you look over the driver,
19:02
and there is no driver. There's
19:05
just robot.
19:06
Hello, I'm Johnny Cab.
19:09
Where can I take you tonight? And
19:11
you're like, what's going on? This feels unsafe.
19:14
But then the robot's like, come with me if you
19:17
want to live. And so you relent. And
19:19
all of a sudden, the robot makes the car go, and
19:22
you actually get to your destination. But then the robot gets
19:25
kind of surly. Get out. What
19:28
sounds like a distant, sci-fi future
19:31
is now a reality. RoboCabs
19:34
are picking up passengers in San Francisco,
19:37
and they're coming for you next on
19:39
Today Explained. So
19:41
we yells out,
19:44
ready, on your mark,
19:46
get set.
19:59
And I was so teed up, I just took off!
20:02
So we've got this rule that really
20:05
seems to be unscientific, to
20:07
say the least. Yeah. And honestly, kind
20:09
of unfair. And there's
20:12
rumblings that world athletics might be considering
20:14
changing it. A World Athletics Council member
20:17
from Finland actually called for a rule change
20:19
on this. And the president of
20:21
World Athletics said... And
20:23
yeah, the full start rule, I'm sure, will
20:25
be looked at by the Competition Commission. And
20:28
everything is on the table, as it always
20:31
is after championships.
20:33
World Athletics actually sent me a great
20:35
statement on this, which said, It
20:37
is standard procedure after each World
20:39
Championships for the World Athletics Competition
20:42
Commission to review the championships and
20:44
recommend any rule changes. So
20:46
they're not saying anything? Not
20:49
really. So until they
20:51
do figure out how to change this, I guess I
20:53
was wondering if
20:55
we could try to figure out how we might get to a perfectly
20:57
fair race. Yeah. And what
20:59
are the options here?
21:01
Okay. So on the one hand, we've got Mathieu,
21:04
right? He wants to use more science,
21:07
more technology to kind of get finer
21:09
distinctions on this limit. You know, take
21:11
this
21:12
kind of non-scientific, tenth of a
21:14
second limit and bring it firmly
21:17
into the realm of science, rigorous
21:19
science, like you said. Yeah. And that's
21:21
broadly what a lot of the people I spoke to
21:24
also told me. So the historian I talked to,
21:26
PJ, he said he wanted a lower, more precise
21:29
limit. I talked to a sports scientist,
21:31
Matt Payne, who said the same thing. And
21:33
they both said we also need more transparency
21:36
around exactly how these machines work.
21:38
Yeah. So, you know, we can hold them accountable.
21:41
Yeah. We need to know, like, each machine
21:44
is making the same decision around,
21:46
like, when that person started. Right.
21:48
And that's actually what some people think
21:50
happened at the World
21:51
Championships with Tania and these other runners,
21:54
that something must have been up with the machines,
21:56
because reaction times were just, like, super fast
21:59
across the board.
21:59
And honestly, I think that's a
22:02
key problem with having this
22:05
really strictly enforced
22:07
limit because applying this tiny
22:09
distinction across tons of machines
22:11
perfectly consistently without any error
22:14
is clearly showing itself to be really difficult.
22:17
And it's also always possible that someone can come along
22:20
with just superhuman reaction time
22:23
and just slightly break
22:25
this limit, whatever we find. Yeah. And
22:27
the limit is always going to be a fuzzy number anyway. Right.
22:30
And if you draw a clear line
22:32
in the middle of
22:34
what is ultimately just
22:36
a fuzzy border and
22:38
someone is barely on the other side of that clear
22:40
line, is it really enough to label
22:42
them a cheater? I don't know. Yeah.
22:45
Technology doesn't
22:46
necessarily make fuzzy borders go
22:48
away. Sports have not been
22:51
created or invented to deal
22:54
with the technology that we have today.
22:56
So I talked to this sports writer, Joe Poznanski, and
22:58
he's written a lot about the use of technology in
23:01
sports. Joe says that technology
23:03
can give us a lot more data,
23:05
but it's not always clear that more data
23:07
equals more accuracy,
23:09
especially when we're dealing with fuzzy borders and sports,
23:13
which are ultimately, they're games, right?
23:15
They're not scientific experiments. There
23:18
is a
23:18
way to break down the context
23:21
of any game to a point
23:23
where it's no longer a game, where it no longer
23:25
makes any sense. I think it's kind
23:27
of funny. We've been talking to scientists who the answer
23:29
to this question is, well, we just need more precise
23:32
sensors. We need better science. We need more, you
23:34
know, data, data, data. And I'm sure that's
23:37
that's fun for them. Right. Yeah. And
23:39
Joe told me that it can cause some real
23:41
problems.
23:43
In baseball, for example, used
23:45
to be that a guy stole a base
23:49
and the tag was late. He
23:51
was safe. That's how that worked. So
23:56
as long as you're touching the base, you're safe. That's
23:59
the one thing I know about.
23:59
baseball. Right, that's the main rule
24:02
of baseball. But now if you slow
24:04
it down enough you'll see
24:06
that occasionally the guy when he slides
24:09
into second base just for a fraction of
24:11
a second, his foot will bounce off the bag for like the smallest
24:17
amount, I mean a millimeter. And
24:20
what happens in baseball now sometimes is they go to
24:22
this like instant replay review and then
24:25
the ump's like, he's out now.
24:29
That's not the
24:32
way the game was intended to be played, nobody ever even
24:34
knew this existed. And they stopped
24:36
the game for like a while. You know instead
24:38
it becomes this people just
24:40
pouring over it like it's this a brooder film
24:43
trying to figure out is this guy safe,
24:45
is this guy out, it's not great.
24:47
You know I'm realizing that if we went
24:50
the max technology limit and
24:53
you actually got to an absurdly
24:55
small view you would see that actually we
24:57
don't touch anything. Matter is mostly
25:00
empty space, it's just electromagnetism
25:02
that's convincing us we're touching, right? Yes. No
25:04
runner is ever touching a base and
25:07
no fielder is ever tagging a runner. This
25:10
is a little, I think we got a little too deep from
25:12
this topic. But I see what you mean in that
25:14
like there's always going
25:17
to be like the closer you zoom into
25:19
things. You see actually
25:20
like our experience of that
25:23
thing like touching a base is not necessarily
25:26
what's happening on a microscopic view.
25:29
Yeah and it's not just baseball either
25:31
like
25:32
in basketball there are these endless
25:34
replay reviews on fouls. I get
25:36
so bored of these replays, they
25:39
got a great game going. Again it's a gray area
25:41
of like what is a foul. Is that an offensive foul
25:43
or I don't know. And then in football
25:45
there's this kind of like deeply philosophical
25:48
issue of what is a catch. What?
25:51
Yeah like it used to be in your
25:53
hands. Yeah it seems like this really simple idea
25:55
like are you holding the ball. But now
25:57
it's like...
25:59
during the process of the catch. OK.
26:03
If you zoom in really close, is the ball moving
26:05
a tiny little bit when you hit the ground? Like,
26:07
even though it's in your hands. Even though it's in your hands. And
26:10
even though, like, it was always considered
26:12
a catch before. And you've got
26:14
to continue through the play.
26:16
We will now review the previous
26:19
play.
26:21
I don't want to sound like technology is really bad. You
26:23
know, it has its place in sports,
26:25
especially when the lines aren't as fuzzy.
26:28
So like, who finishes a race first seems
26:30
a lot easier to judge on replay than who
26:33
started. Or like tennis, where, you
26:35
know, whether a ball is in or out. Like, that's
26:37
a pretty clear decision. But
26:40
using fancy technology and tons of camera
26:42
angles on things like the start of a race or
26:45
what is a catch in football, it
26:47
can end up being really disappointing
26:49
to fans because,
26:51
you know, you're expecting this clear objective
26:53
result from all this technology. And
26:56
it's just a fuzzy border. Like, technology
26:59
can't solve this problem. Yeah,
27:01
we signed up to come to a game, not to,
27:03
you know, slide presentation. It's,
27:06
yeah, it's like something you would do in a lab. It's not
27:08
something you want to do,
27:09
you know, in an arena.
27:11
So should we just throw out all the sensors,
27:14
the cameras, everything and just
27:16
go out there and
27:18
have fun? So I
27:20
think there's a couple things we could do here. So we could
27:22
throw out the limit entirely. Like,
27:25
just go back to the eye test to see
27:27
who fall started. But the
27:29
sports scientist I talked to told me that like
27:31
people's perception of movement
27:34
can actually be different.
27:35
So some people could actually be better at
27:38
spotting movement in other people. So
27:41
introducing yet another complication
27:44
to when does a race start? Yeah, and
27:46
we could also like keep these pressure sensors,
27:49
but just get rid of this tenth of a second
27:51
reaction time limit. Like just have
27:53
the race start when the gun
27:55
goes off and just say that's it. That
27:58
makes sense to me.
27:59
Like not giving people
28:02
penalties for these apparent thought crimes
28:04
that they started before the gun
28:07
in their head. Right, that's intuitive. That's what
28:09
we think a race should be. But
28:11
without this reaction time limit,
28:13
both of these other options might actually
28:15
incentivize runners to anticipate the
28:17
gun. Like to guess when the gun would go off.
28:20
Is it a huge problem to
28:23
anticipate the gun? Couldn't that just be a part
28:25
of the race? Well, it's against the rules
28:28
for one thing, but it could also just
28:30
make races super chaotic.
28:32
Like there'd be false starts and restarts all
28:34
the time. I don't really think races
28:37
would want to incentivize that.
28:39
Wouldn't runners still just get disqualified?
28:41
There's still a big cost for jumping the gun.
28:44
Yeah, there's a big cost. But the people I talked
28:46
to said they think runners would risk
28:48
it. Like if you're racing someone who's just way faster
28:51
than you and your only shot is to anticipate
28:53
the gun, you might just risk
28:55
it even if you could get disqualified. And
28:57
then some people probably wouldn't risk it. So,
29:00
you know, if we're looking for the fairest possible
29:02
race, like one where every single person
29:04
is being timed from the gun to the finish line,
29:07
I don't really think the answer is taking away the
29:09
limit and maybe encouraging people to jump
29:12
the gun more.
29:13
I think every option here
29:15
will fail us in some way. It's just
29:17
deciding which failure
29:20
feels like sports. I
29:23
think that's exactly right. And
29:25
that's something that Joe said to me. He basically
29:27
said, There's no way to
29:30
make sports perfectly
29:33
fair. What you want
29:35
to do is make it fair enough that
29:37
people have faith in it. But we accept
29:40
the illusion.
29:41
So Joe's favorite solution for fuzzy borders
29:43
in sports like baseball and football is
29:46
just to accept the gray area. Let the official
29:48
watch the replay in real time. No slo-mo.
29:51
And if the call can't be overturned, just stick
29:53
with the call in the field because perfectly fair
29:56
isn't possible.
29:57
Yeah, I think perfect fairness
29:59
is... is impossible. But
30:01
at least with this false start rule, we
30:04
could probably make it a little fairer.
30:07
We definitely can, especially because we
30:09
know this reaction time limit isn't right.
30:12
So lowering the limit seems like a clear move.
30:15
We can embrace the fact that we'll probably
30:17
need to keep updating it over time. And
30:20
then ultimately, if we're honest
30:22
about the fact that when a race starts is
30:24
kind of this fuzzy border,
30:26
we'll end up labeling fewer people cheaters
30:29
who probably didn't cheat. It's still embarrassing
30:32
because you don't want to
30:35
ever be labeled as somebody that cheated. Tania
30:37
is still thinking about her false start at the World
30:39
Championships in July when officials said
30:42
she started before hearing the gun.
30:43
I literally waited till I heard what
30:46
I needed to hear, just like I've done in hundreds
30:48
of other races. For a while, it was
30:50
hard to shake. I haven't really
30:53
shared this with many people, but I've kind of been experiencing
30:55
a little PTSD with it because
30:57
now when I get in my blocks, the
31:00
only thing that I'm thinking about in my blocks is
31:02
be patient.
31:03
That's literally the thing that's been engraved in my head
31:05
since that moment. Be patient because you can't
31:07
afford for that to happen again.
31:10
But Tania is nowhere close to giving
31:12
up on running. I'm one of the true lovers
31:15
of this sport. I love
31:16
what I do.
31:18
And as
31:21
big of a blow as that was, it hasn't changed
31:25
my eagerness to step on the line. And
31:27
last August, she was back on the blocks
31:29
at another big race. Brittany Brown
31:31
followed closely by Tania Gaetha. She
31:34
took home a silver medal running a personal
31:36
best in the 200 meter dash.
31:39
But the thought of that false start after the gun in July,
31:42
it's still lingering in the back of her head. So
31:44
at the end of all of this, I told her about
31:47
our reporting and all the people we've talked to. And
31:50
I guess it doesn't seem like to me like you cheated.
31:53
Yes, that's how I feel. But
31:56
I guess the data says I cheated. And
31:59
I think. Based on the science here, we
32:01
have good reason to say Tania Gaither
32:03
is not a cheater. Wow. Well,
32:05
I really appreciate that. I would love for
32:08
the world to see that research.
32:25
Since we first ran this story last year,
32:28
World Athletics has changed their
32:30
rules. Really slightly. So
32:32
now, if there's any doubt about the call
32:34
from the automated system, referees
32:37
can allow athletes to run and
32:39
then appeal afterwards. So
32:41
it's a little more flexible. But
32:43
starting faster than a tenth of a second is
32:46
still considered to be a false start. So
32:48
no huge changes here.
32:50
This episode was reported and produced by Noam
32:53
Hassenfeld and me, Brian Resnick. It
32:55
was edited by Meredith Hodnot and Catherine
32:57
Wells. Noam wrote the music, Efim
33:00
Shapiro and Christian Aiella did the mixing
33:02
and sound design, Serena Solon
33:04
checked the facts, Mandy Nguyen
33:06
is going for a swim, and Bird
33:08
Pinkerton, she jumped up
33:11
and ran to the door while the alarm
33:13
was blaring. But the door slammed
33:15
shut, and over the loudspeaker she
33:17
heard a deep voice.
33:19
Lockdown sequence initiated.
33:24
Special thanks this week to PJ Vazel,
33:26
Matt Payne, and Robert Johnson for their help.
33:30
If you have thoughts about this episode or
33:32
ideas for the show, email us. We're
33:35
unexplainable at vox.com. We'd
33:37
also love it if you wrote us a review or
33:39
rating.
33:41
This podcast and all of Vox is free,
33:43
in part because of gifts from our readers and listeners.
33:46
You can go to vox.com slash give
33:49
to give today. Unexplainable
33:52
is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network, and
33:54
we'll be back next week.
Podchaser is the ultimate destination for podcast data, search, and discovery. Learn More