Infotainment Factory: 'Rubbish' technical fault triggers champs 'chaos'

A miscommunicated false start has caused havoc at the FINA World Short Course Swimming Championships on Friday night.

In an unbelievable turn of events, Australia's Isaac Cooper's win in the men's 50m backstroke was thrown out after the race was scrapped because of a starting error.

Initially, it appeared Italian Lorenzo Mora had triggered a false start, however it was later determined a technical error with the official starter was the reason.

Confusion in the pool as some swimmer realise the race has been abandoned.

A re-swim of the race will now occur after half the field completed the full distance without realising a false start had occurred and the race had been abandoned.

Remarkably, a signaling rope at the 15m-mark failed to drop to notify the swimmers of the penalty.

"They've got to notify the athletes. This is rubbish. They have to notify them," Australian swimming legend Ian Thorpe said in commentary for Wide World of Sports in the immediate aftermath.

"There should've been a drop [of the rope]. This is a false start at the 15m-mark, so all athletes should have known. There is a huge disadvantage to those that have continued.

"There was a 15m lane rope line that should've dropped to actually indicate a false start."

As soon as all swimmers had returned to the wall, discussions soon turned to the competitions protocol.

The FINA World Swimming Championships (25m) will be broadcast exclusively live and free on Nine and 9Now from December 13-18.

Confusion rained supreme with the participants confused whether they should leave the pool or prepare to race again.

"It would be completely unreasonable to expect the athletes that have swum 50m in this race to go again when there were four athletes on the outside [lanes] who haven't.

Reporting poolside, Australian swimming great Giaan Rooney described the fallout as "chaos".

Finishing first of the athletes that continued, Cooper appeared shocked upon realising is blistering performance would not count.

Isaac Cooper appears stunned after realising his world championship-winning time would not be counted.

"You could see how shocked he was," Thorpe said.

"No-one was cheering after he looked up at the board, and saw that he'd won the race, Isaac Cooper, so he was confused. Then someone broke the news to him (that the result wouldn't count) and it was a look of disbelief on his face.

"He's technically just become world champion and now has to do this race again," added Ariarne Titmus in commentary for Nine.

"I have never seen this happen before."

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