Oscar “Purple” Peyton beats Damien Leake in M60 100 final Saturday, 12.08 to 12.12.
Folks running the 100 at North Carolina nationals may have been surprised to find white tape instead of a painted line to put their hands behind. That’s because Wednesday, the day before the meet started, members of the Games Committee found a rare mismeasurement of the 100. Actually, they were tipped to the glitch when they started putting tape down for the 100-meter hurdles in the various age groups. Every time they checked, they found the 100 was actually 99.95 meters. Five centimeters (2 inches) needed to be added to the race. Hence the white tape. The track had been surveyed and certified years ago, but the 100-meter start (or finish) was wrong. So out came the tapes, I was told. They measured three times, including with a steel tape. Each time, they found the 99.95-meter dash. This raises questions for meet venue Wake Forest. How many records might be invalidated for being run on a short course?
Here are my photos from Day 3.
An M35 field blasts off from behind white tape, marking true 100-meter start.
3 Responses
One of the officials believed the white stripe was painted on the wrong side which makes up the variance.
Wow! I keep telling my roadie friends that if you want an accurate course, run on the track. I guess not.
I suspect this is the tip of the iceberg. Look at how many lines are in different positions when tracks are repainted using different contractors! Actually even laying a track so that it is exactly 400m measured x inches (I forget – and that should read centimeters, lol) out from the kerb (and a different distance if there is no kerb!) is not a trivial matter. Builders prefer squares! In a sprint 4 inches can represent about 1/100s so it can matter. In addition, because of the kerb rule, I believe tracks where the kerb is removed (or stolen) strictly need to be relayed, or else should be invalid for records.
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