Paula Radcliffe's Marathon Record
The IAAF has now just reversed that decision about removing existing world records:
Following a recommendation by the IAAF Competition Commission regarding Women’s World Records for Road Events, IAAF Council has approved the continued recognition of the currently existing World Records, regardless of the type of race in which they were achieved (mixed or women only) and new records will be officially recognised and ratified only if achieved in women-only races.
The 48th IAAF Congress in Daegu, Korea, approved that from now on, a Women’s World Record on the Road can no longer be set in a race in which the record setter is competing against men. At the same time, however, no announcement was made about existing World Records, some of which were achieved in mixed races.
To be consistent with previous decisions taken in relation to changes to other World Records recognition principles, the Commission felt that the current World Records are still valid, which prompted their recommendation to Council which has been approved.
I am very happy for Paula and for the other women that were going to be affected by this ruling that they get to keep their records, but it is too little and not soon enough.
Their sexist policy that women can’t run in the same races as men is still going to be in place for the future beginning with the new year, and there is no such policy against men running with women.
This policy will still set back the sport of running by 50 years, and it sets a bad precedent. I think that it’s time that the IAAF acknowledges that it is no longer the 1890s and they stop putting the interests of their federations first while treating their athletes as a commodity.
It’s easy for me to sit here and say that the IAAF should be boycotted as I don’t make my living as a professional runner. It would be especially difficult for track athletes, who don’t have many alternative places to race like marathoners and other road competitors do where they can earn a good paycheck. I don’t know that there is any other way to overhaul these and other antiquated policies of the IAAF that are holding the sport back.
So congratulations to Paula and to the other amazingly fast women who were being threatened with having their world records stripped from them for bad reasons, but the fight should not stop here and we should continue to let the IAAF, the IOC, USATF and whatever your local governing body is what your feelings are on the matter.
If you’d like to learn more information, there have been a few facebook fan pages created over the past couple of months that have been good hubs of information flow and organization that you might want to check out.
The first is “Restore Paula Radcliffe’s Record, put together by Gary Allen and Mary Ropp, and which has achieved it’s goal in being created.
The second is Nick Symmond’s group, “I’m Tired of USATF and IAAF Crippling Our Sport” – you may also want to look into the Track & Field Athlete’s Association which has just opened up membership to non-elite runners and reduced the membership fees to $20/year.
“Their sexist policy that women can’t run in the same races as men is still going to be in place for the future beginning with the new year, and there is no such policy against men running with women.”
Women can run in the same races as men. The only caveat is that they have to start the elite women a few minutes ahead of the men. Hardly a burdensome requirement and I believe most major races do this already for a variety of reasons.
I have conflicting feelings about the rule, but I don’t see it as sexist. The fastest men are faster than the fastest women; that’s not sexist, just a fact. Another fact is that running with somebody faster than you can push you to run faster. Even excluding the benefit of possibly being coached by somebody during the race, it’s to be expected that women running with men would be slightly faster than women running separately. The same would be true if men were allowed to run with faster competitors; say somebody on a bike.
So you have a bit of a dilemma. You either penalize the female group with the advantage by disqualifying them, or you penalize the group without the advantage. Again, not a matter of sexism, just a matter of what creates the most fair and reasonable rules. Given the relative ease with which races can be modified to accommodate the new rule I don’t have a big problem with it.
What I do think is ludicrous is retroactively applying the rule. Rules (arbitrary as they might frequently be) should be known and consistently applied, not made up after the fact.
Thanks for sharing your opinion.
I think that it’s a sexist policy because they aren’t disallowing pacers…they are disallowing women running in the same race as men. In the scenario you describe where women start first, they don’t discredit any records run by the men who are chasing those women down. I can understand if they said that you can’t have a pacer during a race. That would make sense and I wouldn’t have a problem with that. In fact, USAT does have rules about drafting off of people and working together in sanctioned races (and those rules apply to all competitors, not just those up front.)
I do agree that their initial attempt to retroactively apply the rule was misplaced, and had they not done that I think that this ruling might not have gotten as much attention as it has (which would have been a shame, in my opinion.)
It’s difficult to pace off of somebody running over a minute a mile slower than you.
I won’t argue with that, but for the short term you can look ahead and reel in somebody that is ahead of you.
I wouldn’t have a problem with the ruling if it said no pacing. I wouldn’t have a problem if it disqualified men’s records that were set in races with women as well as women’s records from races with men. (Well, I would have a problem with it, just not the same problem.)
If somebody is out there running under a 2:15 marathon, whether they are paced by a man or a woman or running by themselves but just happen to be in a race where men are present, they still have to cover the distance in the time. Track records with pacers that block the wind for 3/4 of the race are recognized, so I don’t see any need for the discrimination.
In the grand scheme of things, this is just a small piece of the larger issue of the IAAF not caring about it’s athletes and treating them as though they were a commodity. You might find this article by Toni Reavis an interesting read.
What’s to stop a fast man catching up with the earlier-starting elite women and unofficially pacing one or more of them? Surely by running on the same course men and women *are* running in the same race?
I don’t see any problems with that, personally.
From a practical standpoint, if the women have a 30 minute head start (which is the standard time for most of the large marathons, obviously for shorter races it will not be as long a head start) then any women that get caught by the men are not going to be in contention to set a world record.
hahaha… the only records I care about are mine. but that’s just stupid 🙂
Does this apply to ultras as well? There’s not a single ultra in the world that’s single-gender or with separate starts! Or as usual, did no one think about ultras?
That’s a good question, Phil. Most ultra records aren’t actually kept by the IAAF, and the ones that are are usually on a track or road. The rule applies across the board. I think the issue isn’t so much not thinking of ultras, but that the IAAF isn’t good about thinking about anything off of the track. Or about thinking in terms of modern day; they seem to be mired in the thought patterns of 50 or 100 years ago and have self-admittedly decided to continue on that course because they don’t actually care about their athletes. The athletes are just a commodity to them, after all.