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In some racing sports, regulations require a variable time between the refereeu0027s “Ready” cue, and the starting shot. Psychological experiments demonstrate that the length of a pause between such a non-spatial cue and the following signal affects the response to that signal: Reaction times are lowest after an optimal interval of 500 ms, and progressively increase as the interval increases to several seconds (Posner and Boies, 1971; Sanders, 1975). This phenomenon is attributed to a short-lived boost in arousal, and is referred to as the alerting effect. In a recent Perspective article in Frontiers in Psychology, Dalmaijer et al. (2015) argue that alerting effects could allow athletes who start with shorter ready-start intervals (RSIs) to respond quicker to the starting shot. They support their claim with a correlation between RSIs and race times from the 500-m speed-skating event at the 2010 Winter Olympics (Figure ​(Figure1A),1A), and suggested temporal variability should be removed from starting procedures in racing sports to avoid biased competitions.Figure 1The time between a refereeu0027s “Ready” cue and the starting shot is variable, and correlates positively with speed-skatersu0027 times at the finish (A), and 100 m into their race (C). This is true for men (yellow) and women (blue). Group-level ...News media reported on the study (Daily Mail Online, 2015; Huffington Post, 2015; Suddeutsche Zeitung, 2015). The resulting public attention sparked debates amongst speed-skating enthusiasts and professionals, revolving around two questions: Do quicker athletes somehow produce shorter RSIs, and should the effects of RSIs have been tested earlier into a race? Here, we address the raised concerns with additional data and analyses.

Commentary: Life is unfair, and so are racing sports: some athletes can randomly benefit from alerting effects due to inconsistent starting procedures