Why was Alberto Salazar's WR at NYC marathon disallowed?

100 yards out 26.2 miles is a very small percentage. It would have been hard to measure the course directly with all the traffic.

The course measurement requires it to be at least 0.1% LONG.

As for the measurement, I do not recall the specifics other than it was a 'legitimate' under-measurement, not some miniscule technicality.

Fred Lebow was the ultimate promoter and would have given his right arm for a WR in New York. He talked about it so much to all of us back then that none of us were suprized to find out that we ran short that day. I have no proof of any shady measuring, but I was not suprized.

After the WR was taken away the NYRR changed their tune and instantly began talking about NY being a race and not a time trial.

I recall that they hadn't measured it on the shortest possible route(SPR), which is a requirement for a certified course. Measuring it along the SPR found the course a bit short.

gfftw wrote:

I recall that they hadn't measured it on the shortest possible route(SPR), which is a requirement for a certified course. Measuring it along the SPR found the course a bit short.

This is what I recall of it too. They measured it down the center of the road, rather than taking the shortest possible route.

My recollection is that under the rules in affect at the time of the race, it was 42.195 km. Shortly thereafter the rules were changed and under the new rules, the course short. TFN estimated it was worth 2:08:50.

It certainly was closer to 42.195 km than Clayton's run in Belgium that may have been a km short.

Before Alberto, the world best was probably by Gerard Nijboer, then Ian Thompson and Ron Hill before that.

Totally wrong.

On great authority it was over 400m short

also see the comments earlier by someone knowledgeable - Fred Lebow would do anything ......

Nope, 146 meters.

The course back then was measured along the length of the blue line down the center of the streets, and did not factor for runners cutting tangents.

The NYRRC wanted to measure the shortest tangents, but the New York City bureaucrats made the decision that it had to be measured along the blue in the center of the road. The NYRRC had no choice but to agree, because they were closely supervised while measuring through all those usually busy streets and bridges.

Rob DeCastella ran a 2:08:18 at Fukuoka in '81. He did not wear a watch in that race and apparently did not realize he was on WR pace until someone yelled it out to him near the end.

I was involved with the re-measurement (I have all of the paper work).

There were some politics involved.

A MUCH longer story then I have time to tell tonight.

Cliff Notes version-

The allowable tolerance was in a transistion period.

From the National Running Data Center Newsletter-

"In 1981, a validation program was started by the NRDC to verify the accuracy of race sourses where American records were established. For a performance to stand as a record, the course may not be REMEASURED short of the proper distance by more than the following tolerances:

1. races held prior to 1 April 1981- short tolerance is 0.5%

2. Races held from 1 April 1981 thru 31 December 1983- short tolerance is 0.2%

3. Races held from 1 Jan 1984 thru 31 December 1984 - short tolerance is 0.1%

4. Races held on or after 1 Jan 1985 - no short courses allowed".

I remeasured the course with Tom Knight on December 8 & 9, 1984 - taking the shortest path .30m from the curb. We also calculated the course 1.0 meters fromt he curb.

Results:

Tom Knight -

.30m 148.3 meters short

1.0m 103.0 meters short

David Katz

.30m 152.4 meters short

1.0m 107.1 meters short

I think Alison Roe broke the women's world record that day too but it was also struck due to the course distance. Pulled a rare upset of Grete Waitz in NYC.

case closed

factchecker wrote:Before Alberto, the world best was probably by Gerard Nijboer, then Ian Thompson and Ron Hill before that.

you forgot shigeru soh who ran 2"09'06 in '78

he comes between thompson's 2"09'12 in '74 & nijboer's 2"09'01 in '80

He was paced by a girl

I wouldn't say case closed.

There's much more to this.

Your "great authority" is wrong, period.

Firstly, I have the entire race on Beta, believe it or not. Alberto ran in the middle for almost the entire race. If they were to trace his steps based off of ABC's coverage they would agree that he ran at least 26 miles 385 yards.

Over 400m short, what a load of shit. Alberto was on 4:52 pace from early on and kept it up. His halfway split was right where it should have been, was that 200m short? Nope.

It was the same course that Rodgers ran in 79' and that Alberto himself ran 2:09:41 on the year before.

Fred Lebow would do anything, that too is a load of crap. Alberto came into New York in 80' and said he could run 2:10 his first time out. He did. Fred knew that Alberto had predicted that before hand as their was a lot of hype with RW doing a fairly big story on it. So then did Fred shorten that course too so that Alberto could produce a 2:10 like he had predicted? Nope.

Your great source is a farce and doesn't exist. Like Alberto or not, he got ripped off.

As I said, there is much more to this story.

I believe that Alberto should have been credited for the World Best (there weren't world records for road racing at that time) and I was the guy who remeasured it!!!