By Digital Content Producer
Devon Allen made it to the 110-meters hurdles final, but a false start ended his shot at being World Champion before it really began.
The Eagles WR was disqualified from the finals of the 110-meter hurdles at the 2022 World Athletic Championships on Sunday after he reacted too quickly to the sound of the starting gun. Regulations state that any reaction time within 0.100 seconds of the sound of the sun indicates a false start, and Allen was too quick off the start by one-thousandth of a second.
Allen had secured an automatic spot as one of the eight finalists with a second-place finish in his semifinal earlier Sunday afternoon, advancing with a time of 13.09 seconds, a significant improvement from his preliminary heat time of 13.47 seconds. But he did not have a chance to better that time in the final, or see whether he could get close to his world-leading time from earlier this season.
Allen is a three-time U.S. national champion and a two-time Olympian, reaching the 110-meter hurdles finals in both the 2016 Rio de Janeiro and 2020 Tokyo Games, but has never finished better than 7th place in a World Championship.
The former Oregon Duck had taken 1st place in three races this season coming into the World Championships, most notably winning the New York Grand Prix with a time of 12.84 seconds, the third-fastest time in the 110-meter hurdles in track and field history, and the fastest time by anyone in the event this year.
The only active athlete with a faster time in their career was the man who ended up winning Sunday’s final, the USA’s Grant Holloway, who took the 110-meter hurdles gold medal with a time of 13.03 seconds.
Allen was signed by the Eagles earlier this year as a 27-year-old rookie after showing off his impressive speed during Oregon’s pro day in April. With his track and field duties complete after this weekend, he’ll be hoping to find a way onto the Week 1 roster, despite it being six years since he last played a game. He is due to report to his first training camp with the Eagles on July 26th.