Why didn't the Tributes jump the gun in Catching Fire?

Question

In the Hunger Games, the games begin with Tributes on a platform surrounded by landmines. If they step off their platform before the cannon fires, they trigger the landmines and are blown to smithereens. In the first Hunger Games book, one of the Tributes actually digs up the mines and uses them.

However, in the 75th Hunger Games, the Tributes start out on platforms surrounded by water, precluding the use of landmines. You're allowed to walk around on your platform, so clearly the platform itself wasn't mined. What was keeping the Tributes from simply jumping into the water?

Answer 1

The Capitol can kill you anyway.

If not land mines, then there are plenty of other ways to kill you in water if you jump in before the Games have started:

• Naval mines and depth charges
• “Pull the plug” under the tribute; suck them underwater until they drown
• Sharp rotating blades on the bases under the surface
• Sharks. Or lasers. Or laser sharks.
• And so on.

The Capitol could find some other suitably painful and immediate way of killing Tributes who tried to start early in water. And even if you don’t die immediately, then there are plenty of ways for you to be killed in the Game itself.

They also don’t need to give the Capitol extra reasons to kill them.

Some of the Tributes know of the plan to smuggle Katniss out, and those that don’t are still shrewd enough to realise that these Games are designed to kill off old Tributes and potential leaders in the rebellion. No need to paint a target on your back.