WEJO - PAULA CLAIMS SHE DIDN'T HAVE 'PACERS'

wejo wrote:

Yes she got some assistance from me being there but Keitany got assistance today as well from her female pacer.

The difference is that the female pacer was a woman.

The fastest way for a woman to run would be with a few guys running right in front of her the whole way, setting the pace and breaking the wind. Some don't like the optics of that.[/quote]

More importantly, the ethics and legality.

A pacer must be a competitor and must be eligible to place.

That's why a man can't pace a woman - because they are not competing against each other.

Personally, I'd be all for motor pacing (Or escorting) or set a limit as to how far the pacers can take the racers.

I’m sure Paula must have sleepless nights worrying what some insignificant losers posting on Letsrun have to say about her.

Last time I checked, the fastest time a female has ever run a marathon is still 2.15.25.

This is why nike's sub 2 thing is so bad for the sport. They won't break 2 but they could well run significantly faster than the current WR. If they do, it will devalue the world record and take away from any future legitimate records until they can break the assisted mark.

This whole notion about non-paced and a women's only record is just silly. If a woman runs with a male or female escort, she still ran that race. It's not unfair to others that could enter or not enter that race. Either you can run the time or you can't. Paula wasn't racing Weldon. He paced her and she ran her race. In my book, he gets no credit. There should be no asterisk next to her mark or for any other woman running next to a man.

And Paula needs to get away from cameras and microphones for a while.

Seeing farts wrote:

a women's only record is just silly

There is a huge advantage with having men pacers in a race, for a number of reasons, first of all competing against men the level of competition is much higher.

Likewise, men are bigger, and provide a noticeable drafting effect for women, who are smaller. It is easy for a woman to tuck in behind a man, or 2 or 3 of them, or a dozen in the case of Radcliffe, but not so easy to tuck in behind an average very slight 5' 4" 100 pound woman.

Being next to someone is NOT pacing them, period. That means that Paula was then pacing Mr. Weldon. Yeah, it's true and it doesn't matter what his pr was. We are talking about what she did in that race. Running next to someone is NOT pacing them...that's a fact, not an opinion.

rojo wrote:

You can watch the race below. Take a look at the 1:06:32 mark or 1:27:14 mark. Does it look like the men are rabbiting her in a tradition sense? No it does not.

I looked at the video. Other than the men aren't always directly in front of her, yes it looks like rabbiting. And I think many of you aren't missing a key point of that race. It wasn't a mixed gender race. The women started 45 minutes before the men. But some men started with them. What purpose did these men have other than pacing?

The difference, RunRanRin, is she was a paid commentator for the race. That makes the remark quite odd to me and others. It's one thing to say Mary might pay for the fast early pace. It's another thing to hope for it. Again, she is not being interviewed, but working the race. Uncool, and, yes, sign of an overdose of self-focus.

RunRanRin wrote:

And the '76 Dolphins pop champagne after the last undefeated team of the football season loses. It turns out that sometimes notable record holders aren't excited to be surpassed

.

George213 wrote:

A comment on facebook:Shocking commentary by Paula Radcliffe when she was on course to beat her record though! "I hope she pays for this pace!'I think the BBC have better commentators. Amazing result and well done Mary.

What a bitch. That woman really irks me, disgusting!

rojo wrote:

You can watch the race below. Take a look at the 1:06:32 mark or 1:27:14 mark. Does it look like the men are rabbiting her in a tradition sense? No it does not.

https://youtu.be/tZEBMCv4GXU?t=1h6m32s

...

The rabbits or escorts are certainly different than what appears in men's races.

In this video, Paula has the benefit of being on the shoulder of a male runner at 2:09:xx. This is very different that what happens in men's races, as they would never have a paid pacer/escort nearby that far into the race.

I used to be a big Paula fan, but the more I hear from her the less I like her now.

I heard Paula "hoping" during the commentary that Mary would suffer for her fast early pace. I don't think it is appropriate for the commentator and I definitely think it was very very poor sportsmanship (or sportswomanship) from Paula.

Gvhvghghgghggu wrote:

Ok, Escorts...

Gray Zone...

You had pacers - no they were "escorts"

You were blood doping and taking EPO - no it was "dehydration" and "lab error"

You want transparency - no ... well yes except for my dodgy blood test results which my friends in IAAF say were not really dodgy ...

And so it goes on ...

Seeing farts wrote:

This whole notion about non-paced and a women's only record is just silly. If a woman runs with a male or female escort, she still ran that race. It's not unfair to others that could enter or not enter that race. Either you can run the time or you can't. Paula wasn't racing Weldon. He paced her and she ran her race. In my book, he gets no credit. There should be no asterisk next to her mark or for any other woman running next to a man.

And Paula needs to get away from cameras and microphones for a while.

Agreed the competition should be just "open" anyway with prize money based on where the runners finish in the race and not based on what arbitrary subcategory they fit into such as "masters" or "gender". So RDs need to get rid of the farce of gender only races and just note the subcategories in a race for the sake of statistical interest only.

Former Paula fan wrote:

I used to be a big Paula fan, but the more I hear from her the less I like her now.

I heard Paula "hoping" during the commentary that Mary would suffer for her fast early pace. I don't think it is appropriate for the commentator and I definitely think it was very very poor sportsmanship (or sportswomanship) from Paula.

I was a little shocked when i heard it round the 5k mark

Ever heard of greyhounds?

I'm not surprised by Paula remark. Professional athletes are competitive ego maniacs- all of them. They all want fame and glory as much as possible. If they weren't like that, they could never win a race. Humble people feel uncomfortable competing other people. They feel uncomfortable standing high on podiums, they feel uncomfortable having cameras on them and seeing themselves on tv and magazines. Off course, there are some that pretend to be and act like they are, but deep down they are too competitive ego maniacs, and if they weren't, they wouldn't be able to win competitions. All of them, including the so called humbled Kenyans and Ethiopians. It's the deeds that make one humble, not his words.

Females vs males wrote:

wejo wrote:

Yes she got some assistance from me being there but Keitany got assistance today as well from her female pacer.

The difference is that the female pacer was a woman.

The fastest way for a woman to run would be with a few guys running right in front of her the whole way, setting the pace and breaking the wind. Some don't like the optics of that.

More importantly, the ethics and legality.[/quote]

Most importantly, the smell. It's also degrading to have a bunch of guys running in front of you farting. Or am I misinterpreting something?

Run007xx wrote:

Is she LYING (or marginalising the truth)?

She's British. So there's that whole cheating is in their genes thing.