Hope sprouts for ratification of USATF records at Palo Alto
Our masters mole in Indy, having read my entry about records at the National Senior Games being ignored, writes: “USATF did issue an ex post facto sanction for NSG. There are 9 ‘records’ set there that would be up for ratification here. Of those, one is by someone for whom Sandy (Pashkin) doesn’t have other required info (like a copy of the birth certificate to verify age) . . . As a side note, at the NSG they did the “age as of December 31 of the year of the meet” as the determining factor for age groups, so this could be a serious concern for this individual depending on the actual birth date. Sandy is recommending that the marks from NSG not be ratified because an ex post facto sanction sets a pretty bad precedent; there wasn’t much dissent on that at the Exec Committee, but I suspect there will be when it reaches the floor of the MTF committee later today or tomorrow.”
My mole further writes:
Actual record ratification takes place in the overall USATF Records Committee, not the MTF Committee, which merely makes a recommendation to the Records Committee. In other words, it ain’t over for the NSG records. The fat lady hasn’t sung yet.
There (are) a handful of others that are not being recommended, mostly because of non-compliance with rules for records (eg, no field sheet to verify a distance; shot thrown onto concrete with no real way to see exactly where it landed; lack of officials present to sign the form (like the PV record mentioned by a poster).
4 Responses
Bad precedent, my foot. How about doing the right thing for a change? Masters have been taking a real beating in recent years when it comes to records; why should they take another one just for this reason? We need to look at masters athletes who break records as people to be respected, not as criminals.
A very powerful distinction between USATF Masters and NSG T&F meets – that NSG age brackets are based not on the age of the athlete at the ‘start date’ of the competition but the athletes age on the last day of the year. Thus if you are 59 at the date of your event but you will be turning 60 at the end of the calendar year – you will compete in the older 60-64 category rather than the 55-59. So you set a ‘age’ record in your assigned age category of 60-64 but you are not yet chronologically 60.
Holly cow – no wonder Sandy has it rough. So what if the mark this athlete achieved in the assigned age category works in reverse and betters the younger age bracket – the 55-59 – masters record? You make the mark in the 60-64 age bracket but now want to apply the mark to the younger 55-59 bracket because chronologically your age is within that younger bracket.
Seems that a strong question is why NSG insists on athletes competing outside their chronological age. Imagine as a spectator hearing that the person who wins the 60-64 event is really 59 – yep that gives the NSG credibility.
Nobody is arguing that a 49-year-old man get credit for an M50 record. Of course the actual age of the athlete on the date of competition matters for record consideration. But who is going to be the one to tell 93-year-old Don Pellmann that his M90 record vault won’t count because of some official neglecting to get a USATF sanction?
This year’s NSG age groups were based on age on the first day of the meet. Here is the rule: The age you (or the youngest of the partners) will be on the first day of the 2009 National Senior Games (August 1st, 2009) is the age group you will compete it. From this website: http://www.2009seniorgames.org/?page=faq-contact-us
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