Britain's Beth Potter runs road world record 14:41 5km

She just crushed at the arena games against a lot of ITU athletes. Probably going to be a medal favorite for the triathlon this summer. I buy that she knew she was in good shape. A lot of this chatter seems a bit much. Let them remeasure the course. Then throw around every wild accusation in the books.

NERunner00053 wrote:

She just crushed at the arena games against a lot of ITU athletes. Probably going to be a medal favorite for the triathlon this summer. I buy that she knew she was in good shape. A lot of this chatter seems a bit much. Let them remeasure the course. Then throw around every wild accusation in the books.

The British don't want her in their Olympic Triathlon team so didn't select her. They don't think she's good enough. The selections were done in 2019...

They prefer very very young female athletes who have come up through the triathlon system, not former Olympic10000m runners. They quite possibly consider Ms Potter too old (at 29). That does seem to be the prevalent attitude towards female triathletes in Britain.

She is ranked 48 by the ITU. Britain has 4 women in the Top 10.

Brad Avenue Runner wrote:

NERunner00053 wrote:

She just crushed at the arena games against a lot of ITU athletes. Probably going to be a medal favorite for the triathlon this summer. I buy that she knew she was in good shape. A lot of this chatter seems a bit much. Let them remeasure the course. Then throw around every wild accusation in the books.

The British don't want her in their Olympic Triathlon team so didn't select her. They don't think she's good enough. The selections were done in 2019...

They prefer very very young female athletes who have come up through the triathlon system, not former Olympic10000m runners. They quite possibly consider Ms Potter too old (at 29). That does seem to be the prevalent attitude towards female triathletes in Britain.

No, the British team was just very hard to make. Non Stanford has actually shown she can be one of the best in the world and was unlucky to get picked - meanwhile, Potter has merely shown potential.

If GB didn't have 4+ women that would all genuinely be aiming for gold in the event, maybe they could chuck someone like Potter in as a wildcard over someone who has shown they're a top 10 athlete. That wasn't the case here.

Also, whoever said above that she would "run down everyone by 2 minutes"... I'm not so sure. There are a handful of girls that could probably run 31:30 or so for 10km right now that are stronger swimmers and cyclists that Potter. Potter might be the best runner, but she's not blowing the doors off the field

Jess Learmonth and Vicky Holland are both older than her. Learmonth also started triathlon late coming from a swimming background. The women's team is just too deep. Beth Potter has Non Stanford and Sophie Coldwell ahead of her.

Agreed she crushed that TRI indoor event (Super League) but the best ITU women were not even present. Lucy Charles was second and her focus is Ironman not Super League Triathlon that are really sprints.

This was not a true race as there was no drafting on the bike or swim and run was on a curve treadmill. It really was more of like an "Excercise Competition."

But in British Triathlon, Non Stanford has a road 10k pb of 34.46 dating from 2007, Vicky Holland 34.08 from 20.13, Sophie Coldwell 33.25. Jessica Learmonth has a park run 5k pb of 17.03 and thats it for her, no other running results on Power of Ten. Potter's 10k pb is 32.03 and she seems to be improving.

I think in an unpredictable event like the Olympics, I'd take a chance on the fastest runner (and one who runs well off the bike) rather than leaving her at home in favour of fully exposed athletes who realistically aren't fast enough to challenge for medals in an ever progressing sport.

2019 ITU World Triathlon Grand Final Lausanne

Run splits:

Coldwell 38:55

Potter 38:37

Holland 36:36

Taylor-Brown 36:02

Learmonth 35:51

Having a fast run split helps if you are not too far behind after swim and bike. The 2021 Toyko bike course favors those with technical ability and can handle short accelarations. Some will be far behind before the run starts.

she said in her interview that she only recently broke 3min/km for the first time this season. But now she's somehow running that for 5km consecutively?

1. Massive 5k PB (~47s) from what she's run on the track, and 43s faster than she ran on the same course last year.

2. Massive 3k PB en route - even splits would be 8:48, her previous PB is 9:15

The new shoes are good, but they're not that good. There is literally nothing in her resume that supports a performance like this - it's a world class 5000m time that would've placed her 7th at Worlds in 2019, but run on the roads. It also makes her faster than Laura Muir.

Based on IAAF points, this run is worth 1200 points, the equivalent to 30:52.48 for 10,000m (her PB is 32:03).

So essentially - theres not a snowballs chance in hell this is legit.

Her recently deleted IG story says the record will not be certified ("measurement inaccuracy").. perhaps she deleted at the behest of her agent to keep the publicity going.

Standard Setter wrote:

Her recently deleted IG story says the record will not be certified ("measurement inaccuracy").. perhaps she deleted at the behest of her agent to keep the publicity going.

Even if start/finish were correct, course measurement line is 1 metre out from inside of corners so on a 5 lap oval course it's possible to run shorter than 5k by running 75 cm inside that line on the corners.

Another giver of +1 wrote:

Standard Setter wrote:

Her recently deleted IG story says the record will not be certified ("measurement inaccuracy").. perhaps she deleted at the behest of her agent to keep the publicity going.

Even if start/finish were correct, course measurement line is 1 metre out from inside of corners so on a 5 lap oval course it's possible to run shorter than 5k by running 75 cm inside that line on the corners.

30cm not 1m

The full text of her run from last year is underneath the Marc Scott record report here. She led through 3km in 9.09 (her track pb is 8.53).

https://athleticsweekly.com/featured/marc-scott-british-record-podium-5km-1039931412/

If she ran 47s slower on the same course last year (presumably distance not disputed then) but this time wore super shoes, why is that so unbelievable?

Yeah shoes and all, but the bottom line is the course is some 150/200m short. Know a guy who had the same PB jump in that race from last summer and he was slightly ahead of BP.... This happens in cuckoo-land

So she must have been in worse shape than last year then of the course was that much longer.....as you would expect the shoes to account for at least 30s or so of that 47s, such is the impact that they having. No club level runners would pay over £200 for shoes that were only worth a 5s advantage (assuming the ASICS also fall into this category). I'm fine with that, as technology evolves, but my point is that I would expect her to be running faster this year given the shoes and it doesn't necessarily ring alarm bells to me. Get Bekele to run on that super fast course in a pair of super shoes (if both existed) when he was you get and he may well have run 12:15. The fact that we can't see these comparisons is why Beth's time seems unrealistic. The fact is it's a very fast course, she was in good shape for her and the shoes were cutting edge. I doubt there is more to it than that. It's unlikely given that Chris has run this race many many times as RO that he made a rookie error with the start and finish points.

Ha ha apologies should have proof read that!

Have you seen the in course? wrote:

If she ran 47s slower on the same course last year (presumably distance not disputed then) but this time wore super shoes, why is that so unbelievable?

47s is a hilarious amount of time in a 5k to attribute to a shoe. This isn't a HM or Marathon. Nobody in the world (besides you) is arguing that putting on a pair of Next% or Asics super shoes turns a top male NCAA runner into the new WR holder. You sound ridiculous.