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In 2008, at the Notre Dame track there was a railing on the inside curb.
In 2009, at the Notre Dame track there was no railing, but instead only cones set up on the inside off of the track.
Conclusion: either in 2008 the runners were running too long or in 2009 the runners were running too short. When there is no railing, measurement for the track is taken 10 cm closer to inside. While this may seem too small to worry about, when the difference is projected over 4000 meters it is close to 5 seconds differential. In other words, most of the automatic qualifying teams would have been provisional teams.
The NCAA should mandate railings for qualifying purposes to prevent inaccuracies such as occured in this event (and the Meyo Mile too).