IAAF decides 'women's-only' marathon records will to count as records Read more: News - IAAF decides 'women's-only' ma

How on earth could they possibly think they are doing any good here?

Tell me at least races like NYC where they women take off half an hour early will count, right?

Mary plans to run Portugal half marathon the same day as Berlin Marathon. If she doesn't run Berlin then she don't deserve women's only marathon record.

Congrats Joanie!!!

good.

they used male pacers.....that's like having a guy in a motorcycle pace the guys....if you want a pacer, it has to be someone of your own sex

This is kind of ridiculously retroactive.

I'm not surprised. People have complained about male pacers in womens' races for years.

uh_no wrote:

good.

they used male pacers.....that's like having a guy in a motorcycle pace the guys....if you want a pacer, it has to be someone of your own sex

Then change the rules and apply them to future races. Retroactively applying rules that didn't exist at the time the race was run is idiocy.

BTW - The article says that Joan Benoit would be the women's record holder. Wasn't that record set at Boston and isn't Boston ineligible?

DontFeedTheTroll wrote:

uh_no wrote:

good.

they used male pacers.....that's like having a guy in a motorcycle pace the guys....if you want a pacer, it has to be someone of your own sex

Then change the rules and apply them to future races. Retroactively applying rules that didn't exist at the time the race was run is idiocy.

BTW - The article says that Joan Benoit would be the women's record holder. Wasn't that record set at Boston and isn't Boston ineligible?

Read it again, Joanie's time at the 84 Olympics, not Boston.

They surely can't retroactively apply this and wipe old records; the same standard would mean getting rid of all track records before the current, tighter false start rule.

It sounds as though this is far from a done deal.

I have mixed feelings about such a rule. Joanie's victory over Ingrid in the 1985 Chicago marathon was the kind of performance in head-to-head competition that hardly deserves an asterisk. On the other hand, I have no problem with putting an asterisk next to Takahashi's paced time trial at Berlin in 2001 or Paula's paced performance in the farcical "mixed" London marathon in 2003.

In my view, the fetish for "record" times in paced time-trials has blighted the landscape of world-class distance-running. The proposed new rule has the advantage of being relatively clear about one limit on paced "records," but I'd probably rather see a more nuanced set of rules about paced performances, combined with a more sophisticated distinction between records set in unaided competition or time trials and performances achieved with the assistance of non-competitors.

Avocado's Number wrote:

In my view, the fetish for "record" times in paced time-trials has blighted the landscape of world-class distance-running. The proposed new rule has the advantage of being relatively clear about one limit on paced "records," but I'd probably rather see a more nuanced set of rules about paced performances, combined with a more sophisticated distinction between records set in unaided competition or time trials and performances achieved with the assistance of non-competitors.

+1

AN, I love your posts, but I must respectfully disagree. The notion that a "fetish" for record times has somehow lead to poor or unethical racing decisions outside of PEDs is absurd, in my opinion.

I won't deny the advantage conferred by having male pacers, but retroactive decisions are of the lowest kind. We entrust governing bodies and race organizers to make the decisions that will determine disputes like these, and for them to go back and strip someone of their victory under the applied rules of the time is sickening.

Pure speculation... if you follow the link on the page posted by the runnerspace guy it links to an article at Running Times that says:

"I’m still trying to track down confirmation that the rule will be applied retroactively."

http://wpblogs.runningtimes.com/blogs/talktest/?p=1150

But hey, runnerspace and running times got plenty of page clicks and that's what really matters.

BULLSHIT ... Deena is still the American record-holder in my eyes!

Why may you ask?

Because last I checked, she's a woman and it doesn't matter how she did it, she still did it! It's not like she turned into a male when the mixed race went off in London and she ran 2:19.36!

Like I said, BULLSHIT!

It IS like she ran it on an aided (however much) course.There should be separate standards for "records" v. "bests"

IAAF sucks wrote:

BULLSHIT ... Deena is still the American record-holder in my eyes!

Why may you ask?

Because last I checked, she's a woman and it doesn't matter how she did it, she still did it! It's not like she turned into a male when the mixed race went off in London and she ran 2:19.36!

Like I said, BULLSHIT!

This is indeed stupid.

askdj wrote:

AN, I love your posts, but I must respectfully disagree. The notion that a "fetish" for record times has somehow lead to poor or unethical racing decisions outside of PEDs is absurd, in my opinion.

I won't deny the advantage conferred by having male pacers, but retroactive decisions are of the lowest kind. We entrust governing bodies and race organizers to make the decisions that will determine disputes like these, and for them to go back and strip someone of their victory under the applied rules of the time is sickening.

Thanks for the love.

Regarding this particular issue, I'm not entirely sure what you're disagreeing with, and I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "poor or unethical racing decisions outside of PEDs," but I think that I understand your position, and it is certainly possible that we have a real disagreement.

As I understand your basic point, it's that "record" performances that satisfy the standards in place at the time should not be stripped of their record status or regarded as illegitimate or unethical by virtue of standards that are subsequently promulgated. For the most part, I don't disagree with that, but I also don't see that as inconsistent with anything that I said. New standards often have the effect of relegating earlier records to the past. Consider, for example, the decision to limit record eligibility to performances on courses with start and finish lines within a certain percentage of the race distance and a certain average downhill gradient. I don't think that the imposition of such standards had the effect of retroactively declaring that performances at the Boston marathon or even the Fontana Days half-marathon constituted "poor or unethical racing decisions." It did, however, limit the viability of records set in such races. I don't have a problem with that. It is entirely consistent to acknowledge that a performance might have qualified for some sort of record under the rules of the day, while at the same time recognizing that the performance fails to qualify under more modern standards.

I think that issues about rulings regarding how to treat records set with the aid of pacers can be more complicated than issues about rulings regarding how to treat records on point-to-point courses. In part, that's because the standards have been either unclear or poorly enforced over the years. Consider, for example, Roger Bannister's use of a pacer who allowed himself to be intentionally lapped so that he could assist Bannister later in the race in his quest to become the first sub-four miler. As far as I'm aware, Bannister's use of a pacer in such a manner was not expressly prohibited by any rules. It was, however, subsequently ruled to be a disqualifying use of pacers. I think that was an appropriate ruling. I also think that a similar ruling regarding his use of pacers in his first sub-four mile would have been appropriate, or at least highly defensible. I believe that both such rulings could be reasonably defended as the application of existing standards or rules regarding improper assistance during races, but I also believe that it would have been a defensible position for a governing body to decide, after the fact, that a new rule should be promulgated and applied retroactively to prohibit both uses of pacers, because it was important for the sport to exclude, from the record books, performances achieved with the assistance of noncompetitive pacers. That's not the same thing as declaring that Bannister was acting unethically.

The use of male pacers for women in road races has a pretty checkered past, and I don't know when, if ever, it became an acceptable means of achieving a record time under IAAF rules. I could be wrong about this particular matter, but as far as I am aware, the use of male pacers to assist female competitors has simply been a difficult matter to police, and race organizers as well as competitors have sometimes taken advantage of that through flagrant pacing practices that have sometimes been characterized as something else, like race monitoring. (After Joanie won the women's division of the Boston marathon in 1983, there were allegations that she had been improperly assisted by the pacing of Kevin Ryan. Joanie denied it, and I believe her. But at the time, it was certainly not generally regarded as acceptable for a man to assist a woman in a high-level road race. I'm not aware of any pertinent change in the rules since then, although certain marathons have, in my view, flouted the rules without any apparent adverse consequences, at least until now.) Denying record status to performances in "mixed" races seems a rather extreme way to deal with the problem of improper assistance, but perhaps IAAF is simply unwilling to make more subjective judgments on a case-by-case basis, particularly where race organizers themselves may be complicit in improper pacing arrangements. In any event, I do think that it's unfortunate that the questionable practices of some race organizers and competitors may have triggered such a draconian response.

On the matter of retroactivity: Whether in law or sport, retroactive application of new rules is generally disfavored. It is not, however, always inappropriate. For example, the use of a superior type of javelin, vaulting pole, or swimsuit can quickly wipe out decades of records. In such cases, it may be perfectly appropriate to promulgate new rules that are retroactively applied to exclude such performances from the record books before they transform the sport in certain unwanted ways. That doesn't mean that the use of a superior swimsuit, for example, is unethical. It also doesn't mean that someone is "stripped" of a "victory."

All of the above, however, is only tangentially related to the main observation in my original post, which was that the fetish for record times has encouraged the use of noncompetitive pacers, which I regard as a blight on the sport. While watching high-level marathons and track races, I'm struck by how often the leaders for most of a race aren't even competitors in the race, and are paid to lead the real competitors for as long as possible before dropping out. Sometimes, there are so many paid noncompetitors at the front of the race that it's difficult even to see the real competitors until late in the race. I think that many of us have watched so many such races that we no longer appreciate how absurd that is.

Story confirmed. Whether it will be applied retroactively seems unknown even by insiders in Daegu. Here's an update:

http://wpblogs.runningtimes.com/blogs/talktest/?p=1159

That page states that there will be: "separate records".

Which would mean that no one loses their existing record.