Starting blocks are the most neglected equipment on the track

Clubs will argue about shoes for an hour and then hand an athlete a bent frame with a loose pedal.

Pick up the blocks at a typical club track and give them a shake. Something will rattle. The pedal will have a millimetre or two of play, the central rail will be scored, and the whole frame will flex slightly when you lean on it.

That flex is force going somewhere other than into the athlete. A start is a shove against something that is supposed to be immovable, and the moment the equipment gives, part of the impulse is spent deforming a piece of aluminium instead of accelerating a person. It is not a large loss. It is a completely pointless one, and it is invisible on video because nothing looks wrong.

Worse is the inconsistency. An athlete trains all winter on a set of worn blocks and then competes on stiff new ones, or the other way round, and the feeling under the front foot changes on the one day where nothing should feel unfamiliar. Sprinters are exquisitely sensitive to this. They will report that a start felt heavy and be unable to say why, and the coach will start moving pedals, which makes it worse.

Then there is the setting itself. Pedal angle is adjustable on almost every set and I would bet most club athletes have never had theirs deliberately chosen. A steeper pedal changes the ankle position and where force can be applied through the foot, and the correct choice differs between an athlete with a stiff ankle and one with a mobile one. It comes as whatever the last person left it at.

None of this is expensive to fix. Check the frame for play. Tighten what can be tightened. Retire the set with the stripped thread instead of leaving it in the shed for the juniors, which is what always happens, so the athletes least able to describe a problem get the worst equipment.

Write the athlete's settings down. Pedal positions, angles, block number if the club has several. Take the card to competitions.

We have collectively agreed to spend hundreds on shoes because there is a marketing department to remind us, and nothing on the only piece of equipment that a sprinter actually pushes against.