Seems like there may of been some shenanigans going on with the people who vote on and know about the sprints in advance of the announcement.
https://formula-boinc.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=196 My solution to this would be announce the sprint a week in advance and only tasks DL after the start and tasks UL before the end of the sprint count like the way primegrid does their challenges.
Doubt it can happen as it would be difficult to set it up to work that way.
So, it is what it is, a poop show full of drama.