Masters Meb! 36-year-old shows kids how to make the Olympics
Meb in 2009
About Ken Stone
Ken has followed track as an athlete, writer and web-master since the late 1960s, and saw most sessions of track and field at the 1984 Los Angeles and 1996 Atlanta Olympics. He also attended the 1988, 1992, 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2012 Trials, the last three as a blogger and Patch correspondent. [More...]
Ken Stone
-
15 Responses
Since Master’s running on the roads begins at 40 Meb is still an open runner. However there was a jaw dropping Master’s performance at the Trials Marathon. Linda Somers Smith destroyed the existing World’s Marathon Record for Women 50-54 of 2:48:47 by running 2:37:36 in Houston today. That Age Grades out to 102.05%. That was the performance of the day!
Yeah and De Reuck didn’t do too bad either…
IAAF recently changed entry age for masters road runners to 35:
http://masterstrack.com/2011/09/20031/
USATF will have to follow at some point.
But thanks for the word on masters women at Houston!
40+ American record 2:17?
Opposition to lowering the entry age for masters road runners to 35 by the Masters LDR folks at USATF is overwhelming if not unanimous. (At the USATF annual meeting last month it was agreed to keep the entry age 40 for Master’s LDR in the US.) When the winner of the Oly Trials Men’s marathon is 36 and 3 of the top 10 women are 35 or older you can see why. 35 – 39 year-old LDR runners are still VERY competitive in Open competition.
Tom, the World Record may be posted as 2:48:47, but that’s just because they (like so many others) missed the 2:31:05 by Tatyana Pozdnyakova at the L.A. Marathon in 2005. Because our records are not kept up to date, we recognize the wrong athlete and the wrong performance, so we are prone to jump to announcing an improvement on the record as the best mark, when it isn’t. In regard to American records, I brought this up in several committee meetings in St. Louis, but there is a wall of resistance. Once a mistake has been made (missing a record performance), our “records committee” does not want to look back and correct it.
Andrew,
A couple of questions. Was the 2005 LA Marathon course record legal? At the St. Louis meeting, USATF decided to change its rule of allowing no more that a 30% separation between Start & Finish to comply with the new IAAF rule allowing 50% separation. What was the S/F separation of the 2005 LA Marathon course? I attended the St. Louis meeting and was at most of the Men’s LDR, Master’s, and joint LDR meetings. Other than my own conversation with Andy Carr (the LDR record keeper) I don’t recall any discussion of pending records being brought up. From a voting standpoint, it was decided in St. Louis that ONLY sanctioned events would be considered for records. This had the effect of clearing the list of many pending records that were set in unsanctioned events. Also it is the responsibility of the event (race director/timing company) to submit the proper paper work to get a record recognized. If they don’t do it the record will not happen.
Point to point net drop this year.
The L.A. Marathon course has changed many times over its existence. I was an official at the L.A. Marathon for a lot of years, including 2005, but then the years blur together. So I had to look it up from another source to make sure I’m right. http://trafficinfo.lacity.org/images/Marathon2005SectorMap_resized.jpg In 2005 it was the loop course, starting and finishing only a couple of blocks apart in downtown L.A.
And I didn’t really discuss records in the LDR committee, I was in Masters T&F (where our mistaken records number over 100) and the Records Committee itself.
Andrew good info. I find it a little puzzling with the lack of accurate records.
Tom i hate to pick on you but your comment
“Also it is the responsibility of the event (race director/timing company) to submit the proper paper work to get a record recognized. If they don’t do it the record will not happen.”
So if someone who is 40 were to win an event in the Olympics and set a masters record in the process, it would cease to be a record without the proper paperwork?
I find that hard to believe
Any record, Open or Masters, has to be documented. The referees and timers have to sign off to validate that that the timing was correct and that there were no irregularities. In World and US Champs, Open and Masters, there is no issue once the results are official. However, many Masters records are set in smaller events and, of course, LDR is different than track. In LDR you have to make sure the course is record legal (S/F separation < 50%; drop in elevation < 1m/km) and the event must be sanctioned by USATF (in the US). There is a record submission form that must be filled out – http://www.usatf.org/Events/results/
The biggest reason most LDR records are not ratified is that the event was not sanctioned. As to why many Masters track records do not get recognized, Ken Stone can give you chapter and verse on that.
It’s a complex problem, this keeping of records, and one with many ironies. I, of course, am much more familiar with the track and field issues than those for road races.
One of the ironies is that while masters are urged to go to sanctioned track and field events, and even though the rules of competition mandate that the meet have someone to process new records, the mega-meets, even though sanctioned, may have no interest in processing a record set by a master.
Thus, the poor masters athlete can be left in the lurch. The world knows that she/he broke a record, many people may have watched the video and read the accounts, but that means nothing.
Another irony, which is harder to demonstrate unequivocally, is that masters are held to a higher standard than open or collegiate athletes. For example, in 2006 the chief of FAT at the Penn Relays was asked to send in photos for Alisa Harvey, who broke the listed W40 records in both the 1500 and the mile at the women’s invitational mile at Penn that year (both FAT, of course).
Somewhere along the line the chief, who has done countless big meets, told me that he had NEVER before had to send in a photo for an American or world record.
In 2007 or 2008 at Penn, this same FAT chief told me something like the following when I bothered him for a photo: “You know, Peter, the masters are the only ones who ask for a photo.”
Another irony is that, as a general rule, the bigger the meet (Penn Relays, Drake Relays, Mt. SAC Relays, etc.) the better their FAT and officiating crews but, simultaneously, the more difficulty for the record-setting athlete (the primary issue is security).
Back to Alisa Harvey, when she ran 4:26.49 FAT for 1500 at the Penn Relays, even though the FAT chief certified that that was her time, and even though the Penn Relays Web site announced to the world that she had run that time, and even though the referee at Penn said that was the time, it meant nothing and the record ultimately went nowhere.
Why? Many months later, the original photo for the 1500 could not be retrieved. That the FAT crew had examined the photo on the spot at Penn and determined that Alisa ran 4:26.49 meant nothing.
I contrast that with a tiny (but sanctioned) meet in which Alisa (or some other athlete) could have simply walked up to the meet director and asked that person to help her out. The answer from the meet director would no doubt be positive and the record process could proceed.
Even at nationals it is not always so easy. For example, in 2010 at Boston indoors, Stacey Nieder set an American indoor record for W40 in the high jump. Stacey was featured in USATF’s writeup of the meet, but her mark went absolutely nowhere, never even making “pending.”
In 2011 at Albuquerque, Stacey went even higher, again breaking the W40 record, and again her record initially went nowhere. After some active intervention (which I will not describe), however, she got her record.
Also at Albuquerque, Mary Kirsling of New Mexico established an American indoor mark for W85 in the 800 run. That record was never accepted and, indeed, never even made “pending.”
As a GENERAL RULE, however, I agree with Tom Bernhard (above) that at worlds or nationals you can expect the official marks to be accepted.
Peter: That would be the theory. This year I tried to follow the “general rule”, its actually a real Rule 261.4, that world and national championships should be accepted. I brought several dozen such instances to the attention of the entire national records committee (not just masters). Inexplicably, some of those marks were accepted, Sandu Rebenciuc and Allen Johnson have new M35 records from 2004 and 2006 respectively, but equally or better qualified records, including Jearl Miles Clark 6th place in the 2004 Olympic final, were ignored. With that attitude, my further proposal to look beyond championship level competition, to notoriously well run meets, including the Penn Relays, Mt. SAC etc etc, fell on deaf ears. And as, what I regard as a reflexive contrarian attitude, the quality of officiating at those fine meets–the one I pushed most often was the VanDamme meet where in 1996, Carl Lewis ran a 10.10 +0.4 100 meters AFTER tying the M35 world record in the Long Jump (so the age is verified) at the Olympics–the first record one sees on the list. Instead we have a 10.3 hand time, with no wind and no location set in 1980 as our listed record. Under current circumstances I cannot envision how we can address these hundred plus other unrecognized superior performances. Its for “protection of the athletes.” And so we will probably see other athletes likely surpass the marks on the books and being awarded records for performances that are . . . well . . . not the best ever. So what exactly are records?
Thank you, Andrew. To cite just one of your points, that 10.3 hand-timed 100 with no wind reading could have been as high as 10.70 or 10.75 FAT with wind of 5 meters per second behind it. Who knows? Regardless, it will remain as the M35 record over the 10.10 FAT (wind 0.4+) by Carl Lewis in an international meet. Oh, well.
Thanks for all of your great work, Andrew. I will clarify my statement about the GENERAL rule: I meant that if you go to world or national MASTERS championships you will generally get your record accepted. Not true for Stacey Nieder or Mary Kirsling in 2010-2011, but true generally.
As for international open meets, including the Olympic Games, well, you are on your own. As for your last question, “What are records?,” they are the ones that were able to get through. Whether they were the best credible mark, the 10th best, the 20th best, no matter. The point that we should work through the system to get the best credible mark accepted does not appeal to many people.
I’m so proud of my fellow classmate(Meb K). Way to represent Caver Nation (SDHS). He’s gotten better with age.
Leave a Reply