Fitting a 200 m Track, Kho-Kho and a Protest into One Ground
A school must host a two-day block-level athletics and games meet on its own ground, which is 90 m long and 60 m wide and enclosed by a 2.5 m high wall on the west and north sides; the school building bounds the east and a road the south. The PE teacher has planned a six-lane 200 m track around the perimeter, a kho-kho match on the infield, a volleyball match, a shot put competition and a long jump pit, all between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m. The school has six stopwatches, three 30 m steel tapes, one rake, no wind gauge, no certified thermometer, and nine teachers who can be spared as officials. On the first afternoon the host school's 4 x 100 m relay team wins by 0.2 s, and the rival school's manager submits a written protest that the third exchange took place outside the changeover zone. Earlier, the host school's sprinter was disqualified for a false start on the second attempt of the 100 m semi-final, and a rival's 5.80 m long jump is being entered in the record book although only one official has signed the sheet and no wind reading was recorded.
1. Using standard lane width and safety margins, decide whether the six-lane 200 m track can be laid out on this ground, and state what should actually be marked.
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Test it with numbers before marking a single line. Lane width is 1.22 m, so six lanes occupy 7.32 m on each side of the oval. For a 200 m oval of inner radius r, the straight is 100 - 3.1416r metres and the total footprint length is straight + 2(r + 7.32).
- At r = 20 m: straight = 100 - 62.83 = 37.17 m; footprint length = 37.17 + 2(27.32) = 91.8 m, which already exceeds the 90 m ground.
- To fit 90 m exactly, r must rise to about 21.6 m; the width then becomes 2(21.6 + 7.32) = 57.8 m, leaving barely 1 m to the wall on each side and nothing at the ends.
Conclusion: reject six lanes. There is no run-off, no room for a kerb or a fall zone beside a wall, and a sprinter finishing at the wall end has nowhere to decelerate.
Mark four lanes instead. With 4 x 1.22 = 4.88 m, r = 20 m gives straight 37.17 m, footprint 86.9 m by 49.8 m - about 1.5 m clearance at each end and 5 m at each side. Inside the kerb there is an infield roughly 37 m by 40 m, enough for kho-kho (27 m x 16 m) and volleyball (18 m x 9 m plus 3 m free zone, i.e. 24 m x 15 m) placed side by side across the 40 m width (16 + 15 = 31 m). Shot put and long jump cannot be given a safe sector or a 40 m runway inside this layout and must go to the open area beyond the south side or be dropped from the programme.
2. Rule on the relay protest and the false start. Who should decide, and how should the PE teacher act as a host official?
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Relay protest. A protest is written, filed with the referee within the time allowed after the result is announced (30 minutes), and normally accompanied by the prescribed fee. The referee must not decide alone in a case involving his own school: a jury of appeal of three members appointed before the meet, none of them from the two schools involved, should hear it. Evidence is the written report of the two changeover-zone judges and the exchange-zone markings. If the judges report that the baton was exchanged outside the 30 m zone, the host team is disqualified and the race is re-ranked. If there is no zone judge and no written evidence, the recorded result stands - suspicion is not proof.
False start. Under current competition rules any athlete who causes a false start is disqualified; a false start is not cancelled because an earlier attempt was also aborted. The host school's sprinter's own false start therefore stands, and the first offender was separately disqualified. The manager's argument that both starts should be forgiven is not a rule.
The teacher's role. As organising secretary he should announce both rulings in writing, name the jury, and hand the host-team decisions to it rather than sign them himself. A host who judges his own team loses the meet even when he wins it.
3. What should be done about the 5.80 m long jump, and how should the meet be staffed and equipped next year so that records survive scrutiny?
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The 5.80 m cannot be ratified as a record. A record claim needs a measurement from the take-off board to the nearest break in the sand, read by the chief judge, with a second signature; this sheet has one signature. For long jump, a wind reading is also required (a legal record needs a following wind no greater than 2.0 m/s), and no gauge was used. The correct action is to accept the mark as the result of the competition but enter it as the best performance of the meet, not as a record, and tell the school concerned why in writing before the closing ceremony.
For next year, build the paperwork into the staffing:
- Appoint a chief recorder separate from the announcer, with two assistant recorders and a rule that no result sheet is accepted with fewer than two signatures.
- Buy or borrow a wind gauge and one certified steel tape; keep the 30 m tapes for marking only.
- Appoint named officials in advance - referee, starter, timekeepers, field judges, changeover-zone judges, marshal, first-aid teacher - and publish the list so no one is appointed on the day.
- Constitute the jury of appeal before the first event and publish its members.
- Hold a 30-minute briefing for the nine teachers on protest procedure, false starts and record forms; keep the rule book at the results table.
Records survive because the system is boring and repeatable, not because the marker was confident.