Women's Distance Running Records Erased!

The Game Room
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New York Times Article here.

In one of the most idiotic decisions in the history of sport, the world governing body of Track and Field, the I.A.A.F., has declared all women’s running races with men ineligible for records!

And not just henceforth…retroactively!

So the World Record in the Marathon, set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003, of 2:15:25 - World Record for the last eight years, right? Wrong. Not anymore, according to the IAAF. Because that race had men and women running together. Now the World Record is 2:17:42, again by Radcliffe, in 2005. The women started ahead of the men in that one.

This is wrong on so many levels I don’t even know where to begin.

Here’s what Mary Wittenberg of the IAAF says of their reasoning: “The IAAF wanted to show that women can stand on their own two feet, that they don’t need guys to help them get to world records.”

Wait. What?

So if a woman runs a faster time with a man “pacing” her, that means she didn’t actually run it? Isn’t she still running on her own two feet? I mean, this isn’t biking, where you can draft off of someone for miles.

And where does that leave men? Don’t men use “pacers,” official or not, in pretty much every race? Why is it OK for men but not for women? I hate to break it to the IAAF, but world-class women runners can’t use women as pacers - there just aren’t other women fast enough to do it.

The most unbelievable thing about this whole crazy rule change is that it would take the American marathon record away from Deena Kastor, and give it back to…gulp…Joan Benoit Samuelson…from her 1984 Olympic race!

To me, this rule seems to discriminate against women even further - it doesn’t put them on even ground. It also puts race directors in a horrible position of never being able to start men and women together…unless you don’t care if women can set a record in your race or not.

Terrible…

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Stupid, stupid, stupid.

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On the bright side, it allows trivia like “Who is the only woman to break her own World record in the marathon with a slower time?”

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To be accurate, men don’t use pacers, they use rabbits who are hired to set the pace rather than let it become tactical(slow). They do drop out part way through.
Pacing is not only setting the pace but blocking the wind and taking the stress of maintaining a set pace and letting the following runner just tag along.

When women run in a mixed race, they do get a benefit of having the wind blocked that the men up front don’t.

That being said, stupid decision. The conditions are as they are, let them be.

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Well, yes. Should the men disallow any record where there is any suspicion of there being a “rabbit” in the race?

This decision is stupid. If you played by the rules and set the record it should stand. I can see modifying rules going forward but this is just illogical.

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Did they not also modify the false start rules in the sprints.I think they are no longer allowed even one false start. Bolt I believe lost a race doe to this.

Who comes up with this stuff? A retro active racing rule that takes away accomplishment under the guise of being progressive?

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The other thing is that there used to be so few sanctioned women’s running distance events.

Wait until NASCAR wakes up to the wisdom of this rule. They can restate the results of all of their races. Any car that drafted another car at any point in the race and went on to win the race should be DQ’d.

Write rules that are fair. Modify rules that are not fair. Level the playing field as much as possible. DON’T TRY TO REWRITE HISTORY!

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I think it’s ridiculous. The women achieved the time on their own two feet, it’s not like the men (pacers) carried them. Does this mean that anyone that uses a pace bunny to qualify for Boston should be dis-allowed?

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It seems worse to me than that. If you don’t stay in first place the entire race, then even your own running time is defunct by this logic.

And I do not even see the logic of how this is supposed to be progressive. At best it’s freaking out over accuracy, and, at worst, it’s plain old bigotry against the women who dared run with the men.