Earl Fee appeals for a work-around on 800 WR at Landover
Earl Fee has more records in sight at Lahti worlds.
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When you turn 80, you realize every day is precious. In Earl Fee’s case, it’s every world record. So it’s no surprise that he’s miffed over the timing debacle at Landover nationals, because it potentially robbed him of an M80 world indoor record for 800 meters — a monster 17 seconds under the listed record. Now he’s shared details of his run — and his hopes that his record race will be ratified with some alternative to the phototimer picture. He wrote me: “I hand-timed the professional Media high-quality video of my 800 race three times in 2:49.76, 2:49.87 and 2:49.88. The video also showed the wall scoreboard which starts automatically when the gun is fired. It showed 2:48.92 when I crossed the finish line. The video is very accurate to 1/30th of a second and the Media people were asked to provide a certified time to the USATF. Also there was one official hand-timer at the track. So there is plenty of verification.”
In Landover a day before my 80th birthday, I ran 73.35 in the 400 –_my first 400 this year. I pushed a bit more at our Ontario Masters Indoor Championships on March 29 as I was going for the world record.My main competition was a much younger runner seeded at 75.5 seconds. My first 200 was 34.0 and I finished in 71.23 which is over 4 seconds below the old record of 75.58. The announcer got the crowd interested by announcing I was going for the world record.Last summer I ran only one 400 in 69.48 in an open outdoor race. I thought I could go faster in another race but didnt have the opportunity due to calf injuries in 2008. I should do better in Lahti.In the 200 (at Toronto), I thought I had a chance for the 80-84 indoor world record in 31.86. I have done no speed training yet — but in the previous week I was feeling very comfortable and relaxed running some 50-meter sprints in under 32-second pace. I tried but missed the record by 0.2 seconds, or about 1 meter.I was in lane 2 and there was a faster 70-year-old sprinter in lane 3. I thought if I could keep up with him I could do it. But this day he ran slower than usual.I stay motivated by running against the clock. I choose a target or goal and work hard to meet it.In Lahti I will run the 300 hurdles, 400 and 800. I would have liked to try the 200, but it would mean running four times in two successive days. The 1500 is the day before the 400 which does not suit me either. Also being greedy at 80 could lead to problems.Here is some info on my world record: No photofinish (picture), age group 80-84, 800 in Landover. I hand-timed the professional Media high quality video of my 800 race three times in 2:49.76, 2:49.87 and 2:49.88. The video also showed the wall scoreboard which starts automatically when the gun is fired. It showed 2:48.92 when I crossed the finish line.The video is very accurate to 1/30th of a second and the Media people were asked to provide a certified time to the USATF. Also there was one official hand-timer at the track. So there is plenty of verification. I hope the world record committee does not penalize me too severely in rounding up, as this would then favor any competitor in the future. However I will feel very fortunate to get a 800 world record at all.
8 Responses
Everyday is precious, Earl….Continue to example your greatness on the track anytime, and I’ll continue to attempt to emulate it.
Again, blessings to you for the drive you instill in us all.
Sal
Give Earl the record. When you break a mark by 17 or 18 seconds you have to get your due somehow. We know that The Great Earl deserves the record, and we certainly don’t want this to end up being another in the long line of record-smashing performances (Hinton, Glynn, Thigpen, etc., etc., etc.)that have been consigned to the wastebasket. That wastebasket has been filled and then dumped several times over.
I agree give Earl his record. He ran a world record and deserves nothing less. It’s ridiculous that he even has to fight for this.
For a long time I have been thinking that the track & field community has been wasting a lot of money on obsolete timing systems. We could do a lot better for a lot less. Clearly video is the way to go. Unfortunately, people tend to stick with the old, tried & true technology, way past the time it has been superceded by a better technology. We used to allow hand timing for records, rounded up to the nearest 1/10th. When someone breaks a record by 17 seconds, there shoulod be no question about the accuracy of the timing system. However, some day somebody else will come along and break that record by only 1/100th, so if the accuracy of this record isn’t up to that standard, later on there will be significant greif. I suggest that the 1/30th-second accuracy can be improved by interpolation, a fairly simple procedure. In fact many software packages are available for this sort of thing. I expect video plus computer technology could reasonably be expected to not only allow timing to 1/1000th second, but also to capture the entire race and provide a review process when questions of interference, etc., occur. Since video cameras are so cheap, and widely used, we ought to be taking advantage of them. Ron K. rckpak@gmail.com
I thought that they were reviewing all the results from Landover 1) where records were in question and 2) where somone/anyone that had a result dispute and provided the necessary race information for their event. I don’t think those have been posted yet.
The 800 included runners 75-79 and 80-84. While warming up, I suggested to Earl that he ask the officials if he could run in a later heat, with younger runners, to have better competition for his record try. He mentioned that they would not allow it. Don’t know if he checked or just thought so. However, I ran in both the 400 & 800 races with him, and even though I won both (US runner), Earl was a long way out in the first 50 yards and continued to move away. As we all know, competition usually makes us run a little faster, so he might have fared somewhat better running with faster runners. I certainly hope that the record, in the 800, is accepted.
Years ago, I posted an article that includes a link to my calculations regarding video timing. http://www.trackinfo.org/videotiming.html
In short, using video for timing purposes actually conforms to the USATF and IAAF rules in that it is a stable frequency–American NTSC is 29.97 frames per second. Unlike timing with a stopwatch while watching the video, there is no human reaction time on the visual start, nor the crossing of the finish line as seen by a CCD camera. PyroBrite markets a video based timing system that is only marginally more accurate because it uses the flash of the gun to start it (but still uses video frames as it timing source). The 1995 USATF Masters Indoor Championships in Reno were entirely timed by PyroBrite. Since video timing was acceptable to time a previous version of this exact meet, a hybrid of the same system must be acceptable to (re-)time this year’s version.
Based on the frame before the flash (which might cost Earl or others a couple of hundredths compared to the actual flash of the gun), to the time he crosses the finish line, you can count the frames to get his time certainly within the accuracy of it being well under the world record. The biggest problem, rule-wise is the fact that the video camera that shot the meet is not on the finish line so an accurate finish can not be exactly determined. I haven’t seen Earl’s race exactly, the website doesn’t give a menu to find anything other than the demo.
If I can get a copy of the video, I’ll be glad to load it up and get you a frame count time.
CCD cameras deliver great image quality but CMOS Cameras are cheaper and have higer resolution*~’
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