Radcliffe's marathon world record invalidated

This is great for the sport and even great as Paula is still the record holder!

Good timing to make changes at this time as it could have been really bad if she had to lose her record to someone else based on such rules!

I see Paula says in a recent interview that she has had Thyroid issues, wonder if she has been chatting with Alberto!

Well for all you supporters of yanking Paula's WR, what do you say about high school records in non-high school races (Alan Webb)? Or Masters/age group records in open races (Ed Whitlock)?

Ridiculous... she had a pacer the entire race, every step of the way running with her, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_azxYbwGhY

TrackCoach wrote:

I think this is fair.

No one can take that incredible performance away from Paula, but unless you are going to allow all women to do that, you have to put an asterist next to that performance.

Over the last 5 years, women have run incredible times in the 5k;, 10k...half marathon, but yet they rarely run under 2:20 for a marathon. 2:17 is an incredible performance, 2:15 is almost unattainable, no one is even going to attempt it. Unless you think Paula is from another planet, you have to conclude her 2:15 performance was enchanced.

Sorry, bad logic. All the women in the London Marathon had the benefit of male pacers when Paula ran that 2:15. So how did Paula have an "advantage"?

IAAF your card is marked.

I don't want to enter in the merit of the specific problem about Paula's WR. Instead, I want to identify some point showing that there are rules not following the same principles of equity and fairness.

For example, in Decathlon the rule of the false start is (correctly) different from what happens in a single competition. A Decathlonist can have a false start, without being pushed out of the competition.

So, put the case that Bolt or Blake go to partecipate to a Decathlon, bettering the WR in 100m. In this case, the only limit is that the athlete MUST FINISH the competition, in order to have a final result (exactly like in the case of a WR of 30k during a marathon race).

But Bolt or Blake or whoever other athlete could better the WR AFTER HAVING ONE FALSE START. This is clearly a confusion between the rules, and a conflict that IAAF should not allow.

And, because the new rule about only women road races doesn't concern Marathon only, but all the road races, we have to look for ALL THE ROAD RACES RECORD for women :

25 km of Mary Keitany (at this point, there was some 25k for women only ? If not, at the moment NO WR)

30 km of Noguchi

10 km of Paula (I don't remember if Portorico was mixed or if the start for W and M was separated)

May be the HM record (what about a race for women starting only 5' before men, when men are able to reach women after 12 km and can continue together ?).

At the end of every thing, I fully agree with the Major Marathon that the best solution is to have 2 different WR for every road race distance :

a) In competitions for Women only

b) In mixed competitions.

Also if practically there are not big differences between an official WR and an unofficial Best Performance (no difference in appearance fee for the athletes, or in their image, or in their real position in the history of athletics), I think IAAF must try to clarify the two situations following the reality, instead of creating confusion in the mind of athletics fans, athletes, coaches, officials and journalists.

This is actually the facebook group you should post to.

http://www.facebook.com/WorldAthleticsClub?sk=wall

Renato

Ther´s some inconsistency of the rules

When the rules changes record done with the past/old rule used to be is accepted.

Think about Fiasconaro 800m WR. He did the 800m WR with the first 300m done in different lanes. After a while they change again for the old rule - that is the actual one - only 100m in separate lanes, but Marcello Fiasconaro record is still on the charts. Actually in this case of Paula and other cases they don´t.

For example in the case of doping the rule is also inconsistent. One athlete gets caught with doping. They don´t take out his/her past performances. For example Mouhamed Mourit early european records, twice WCC champs wins, is still on the charts despite he was caught with doping just a weeks days after from that last performances.

But on the case of Ben Johnson they clean out their WRs while were done the past season before doping.

Why is it ok for a male to have a (male) pacer for 90% of a world record attempt, while not ok for a woman to have a male pacer for that same distance (or 10% more)?Assuming that the standard here is "no pacers faster than the person attempting the record," how the hell are you going to deal with every record that isn't an ultimate world record? Junior records, senior records, age group records, etc? You're going to tell me that basically all of our current american records are invalid because they were run with faster runners? An american male elite running with african "pacers" probably has a similar advantage to a woman elite running with sub-elite pacers (no offense to pacer of Paula intended). So, we'll invalidate all junior records run in mixed races, and all age group records run in mixed race, basically all records run where the record holder didn't lead the race and finish first?Men pacing women is not like cars pacing men. Just making this statement should that you're a goddamned moron. Did any of Paula's pacers have a gasoline engine, weight 3000 pounds, and have the ability to go whatever speed they pleased with nearly zero effort? Stupid, crappy analogies. Having a pacer is like riding the space shuttle to the world record.Finally, you talk about racing being different than pacing. Please tell me how you intend to tell the difference between a racer and a pacer, in order to ensure that we have the former and not the latter. No matter how you cut it, there will always be running around that "assist" someone in running a world record, whether they were actively pacing or not. You CAN NOT change this, so deal with it.Screw the IAAF.

fsdafsdafsad wrote:

Well for all you supporters of yanking Paula's WR, what do you say about high school records in non-high school races (Alan Webb)? Or Masters/age group records in open races (Ed Whitlock)?

First, I am not a supporter of yanking her 2:15 WR.

But the quick answer to that question is that age group records do not go under the same scrutiny as IAAF ratified World Records.

World Records, obviously, are at a much higher standard.

I don't know if Ed Whitlock or Webb as a high schooler went through drug testing protocols, for example.

But I do agree that the analogy is similar.

Discussing pace setting is opening a can of worms.

In a track 10,000, should they let lapped runners pick speed up and pace leaders?

Should they let people jump in at the end of road races to pace the leaders?

These examples are illegal because the pacer is obviosly not in competition with the racer.

A male pacer is not in competition with a female racer, so it is illegal pacing.

El G was technically in competition with Webb.

Ed Whitlock was technically in competition with the younger men in front of him.

Male rabbits are technically in competition with male racers. They just usually drop out. You can't enforce a rule against that. They tried, and it was impossible to verify honest effort.

I think they should let the record stand ,though. Just say it was an open competition amongst all runners. And that seperate lists were made for gender and age groups for statistical purposes.

Put an asterisk on it and be done.

lewickerman wrote:

Good. It's about time. If a guy can't use a motor vehicle to pace him then a girl can't use a guy.

It's not whether or not she had a pacer, it's the fact that she had a pacer that was genetically superior.

Plus I don't like her anyway. She was alright for a while, then suddenly just destroys world records out of nowhere with no change in workouts, then disappears for years.

Now if that isn't suspicious then I don't know what is.

And yes I agree, every women's WR minus the 5k needs to be scratched. They're all doped up and everybody knows it.

You think the other records are doped, but the 14:11 is clean? Come on now. I do agree the rest of the records are dirty, Paula's 2:15 is probably the biggest joke in track and field (except for maybe 9.58/19.19). But Defar and Dibaba are juiced to the eyeballs on CERA.

Antonio has expressed my problem with yanking old records set under the old IAAF standards.

IAAF had rules in place during Paula and Deena's runs. They abided by those rules. IAAF subsequently deemed their old rules insufficient. Since it was the IAAF, not the athletes, who corrected themselves then the new rules have to be implemented prospectively.

FINA did the same thing in swimming. "Sure, wear whatever suits you want." Hundreds of World Records later; "Oops, we, not the athletes, were wrong. We are now imposing a new rule on swim suits but records set under our previous rulings stand."

The IAAF needs to own up to its oversight role and stop sticking it to the athletes.

Also, I definitely think that if they are going to yank Paula's record they need to yank Haile's record as well. Using pacers through 90% of a personalized record attempt is aided as much, if not more, than Paula and Deena running with men.

WOMEN'S BOYCOTT ALL MAJOR MARATHONS FOR 2012. Get organized ladies and vote with your checkbooks. Use your economic leverage. They're trying to hold you down.

just deserts wrote:

3. As everyone with half a brain has pointed out, men pacing men is different from men pacing women, because men are more capable than women. A man can't pace another man all the way to a world record, because then he'd be setting it himself. If he can pace almost all the was, he'll be maxing out, not to mention thinking about the win himself. Men pacing women is like cars pacing men.

If you had half a brain, you'd remember Korir pacing Tergat all the way to his WR and narrowly losing to him by 1 second.

WOMEN'S BOYCOTT OF ALL MAJOR 2012 MARATHONS. BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT! BOYCOTT!

And if Korir won, he would have been the world record holder. It was a race. Rabbits are allowed to win.

Any man finishing ahead of Paula wasn't going to get the women's world record or be the winner of the women's race.

Come on Renato you can't compare the Decathlon to the 100m

You might as well compare the long jump where you get 6 goes to the 100m

A sprinter should be able to concentrate on one thing the start whereas a decathlete has 10 events to get wrong

The IAAF rule for women records might have been ok if introduced straight away but to change it retrospectively does not make sense.

It's also a bit of a joke when half the women's records are dopes and in some cases even proved to have been doped but remain on the books

Take away the money and it all crumbles.