Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
What a shocking decision to invalidate Paula Radcliffe’s marathon world record, set at the London Marathon in 2003. The rationale behind the decision is that the record was set while she raced in a mixed race, theoretically therefore, benefitting from having male pace-setters, writes Abu George.
Ironically, Radcliffe still holds the record for the fastest female time ever set, albeit with a time over two minutes slower (2 hours 17 mins 42 seconds) set at the same event in 2005. Radcliffe’s original time of 2:15:25 will now be classed as a world ‘best’.
It’s likely to be a difficult ruling to enforce due to the number of records set at junior or regional races that are mixed. The controversy of this decision by the IAAF stems from the retrospective changing of the criteria.
Even the World Major Marathons and the Association of International Marathons, representing over 300 races between them, call the rule change unfair.
The organiser of the London Marathon, Dave Bedford, has promised to raise the concerns at the next IAAF conference. A further irony is that it was Bedford himself who originally introduced to the IAAF the concept of recognising different records set in these different conditions, albeit he proposed they were both to be called records and would carry equal weighting.
To introduce this retrospectively, while also allowing other records to stand where pace-setters have been used, is both confusing and unmanageable, while also being grossly unfair.
