In sports, a false start is a movement by a participant before (or in some cases after) being signaled or otherwise permitted by the rules to start. Depending on the sport and the event, a false start can result in immediate disqualification of the athlete from further competition, a warning in which a subsequent false start would result in disqualification, or a penalty against the athlete's or team's field position.
False starts are common in racing sports (such as swimming, track, sprinting, and motor sports), where differences are made by fractions of a second that often cannot be comprehended by the human mind, and where anxiety to get the best start plays a role in the athletes' behavior. False starts are signalled by firing the starting gun twice.
A race that is started cleanly, on the contrary, is referred to as a fair start or clean start.
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Famous quotes containing the words false and/or start:
“He could pause in his cross-examination, look at a man, projecting his face forward by degrees as he did so, in a manner which would crush any false witness who was not armed with triple courage at his breast,—and, alas! not unfrequently a witness who was not false.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“Dead men would start and move
toward me to learn of love.”
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