All teams line up in marked boxes at the start; team box assignments published before the race; Starter announces "On your marks" and fires the starter pistol; False starts: rare in cross country (mass start); first false start = warning, second = team penalty
Why people argue about this
People think that false starts are only penalized with a warning for first offense in cross country, but they misunderstand that a team can also be penalized if it commits a false start on its second offense of this infraction. The rule specifically states "team penalty for second," so teams need to be extra cautious about not committing false starts twice in the race.
