Sprinter Falls Victim To Track And Field’s Ridiculous False Start Rule

Can you imagine training for hours and hours and hours, then traveling all the way to the Olympics only to get slapped with a big ol' DQ because of the same lame rule?

Unfortunately, one sprinter from Mozambique doesn't have to imagine it because he lived it. and it's such a bummer.

Steven Sabino took to the track on Saturday for a men's 100m heat, but before he was even able to show the kind of speed he's got, Sabino jumped the gun.

That is an instant disqualification.

Are you kidding me? How stupid is that?!

I get that rules are rules — and admittedly, I haven't followed track since the last Olympics — but I feel like every runner should get a mulligan. Maybe treat it like faults in tennis. You can screw up once, but if it happens again, you're finished.

That's just such a brutal way to see someone's Olympics come to an end.

"We went into a set position and I heard a bang," Sabino said, per Yahoo Sports. "I don’t know where it came from. Probably the pole vault. I don’t know. I heard a bang, the kind of bang that you hear when the electronic gun goes off."

Those damn pole vaulters, man… always showing off.

That seems like the easiest mistake in the world to make, and the punishment for it shouldn't be having your dreams smashed to pieces. They should just slide your blocks back two meters. 

I like that rule, better and not just because I — a guy who watches track for a couple of days every four years — came up with it. 

At least let the guy run, which Olympic officials weren't willing to do, even after he asked to run under protest.

"They didn’t even hear what I had to say," Sabino said. "I sacrificed everything for this."

This just stinks so much. If someone qualifies for the Olympics, you want to see them get the chance to compete. 

I know those are the rules, but they're dumb rules.