New England USATF helps confuse masters records
WMA and USATF are the Big Boyz of masters track — and I hold them to the highest standards when it comes to records. Translation: I cut them no slack. But I’m peeved when even a Little Boy stumbles. That’s the case with USATF’s New England Association, which has posted a page of “records” set at the 2006 masters indoor nationals. Some records listed are kosher. But others clearly aren’t. New England perhaps took its cue from National Masters News or USATF’s error-riddled press release at nationals.
Even with the fig-leaf disclaimer that “all marks are pending ratification,” many of the 38 American and 16 world age-group records listed have problems:
First the “Boston record,” then my comment in boldface.
W40 800m Alisa Harvey 2:08.68 US
Alisa ran 2:07.23 at the Armory in NYC earlier in the year.
W40-49 4×800 Relay Athena Track Club
(Terri Cassel, Mary Grene, Michaeli Smith, Lorraine Jasper) 9:55.86 US, World
WMA does not list an indoor women’s 4×800 record.
W45 800m Lesley Chaplin-Swann (So Cal Track ) 2:22.32 US
Lesley ran 2:20.99 a week or so earlier in Linz, Austria.
(Kathryn Martin, Eileen Troy, Coreen Steinbach, Carolyn Smith-Hanna) 10:49.68 US, World
No records listed by WMA
W80 High Jump Johnnye Valien 0.94 meters US, World
Johnnye’s 0.94 fell short of the W80 world indoor best of 0.96 (3-1 /34) set by Germany’s Margarete Strüven a week earlier in Linz.
W80 Pole Vault Johnnye Valien 1.35 meters US, World
Valien fell short of her own W80 record of 1.40 set in Linz a week earlier.
M30-39 4×400 Relay Ad Hoc ‘G’ (George Joachim, Robert Thomas, Ed Winslow, Marek Wensel) 3:22.03 US, World
WMA doesn’t list an indoor 4×4 record for the M30 age group.
M35 1 mile David Buysse (Team Bird) 4:35.71 US
The USATF records site still lists 4:37.53 by Chris Yorges at the 2005 Boise nationals as the M35 indoor mile record — doubtful as the best M35 American mark, ever.
M35 Long Jump George Joachim 6.55 meters US
Yes, this beats the listed M35 indoor record of 5.86 (19’2¾”) by Todd Anderson, but no, it’s also doubtful as the best M35 jump indoors by an American, ever.
M45 60m Hurdles Karl Smith (non US) 8.18 World
Karl Smith is listed the USATF indoor record holder in the M40 hurdles. So did he renounce his U.S. citizenship and return to Jamaica?
M45 High Jump Bruce McBarnette 1.95 meters US, World
Dennis Lewis jumped 2.04 six weeks earlier as the USATF record site itself notes.
M50 Pole Vault Gary Hunter 4.40 meters US
Jeff Kingstad went 4.41 in 2003.
M55 200m Bill Collins (Houston Elite) 23.52 US, World
Bill ran 23.36 in Linz a week or so earlier.
3 Responses
Wow……yet another “confirmation” that the “records” are essentially worthless. What a tragedy for we athletes who have worked so hard. The best part is that those in “charge”..Pashkin,Mundle etc etc ignore this disgrace and in fact continue to promote this FLAWED system. I say lets give THEM an award this coming December for arrogance and stupidity.
I think this proves the point that an electronic record keeping system is needed for both US and WMA records. Marks may be set at a meet (Linz , elsewhere) it takes months – years – maybe never happens – for these marks to be “officially recorded’. How is one to know that new marks have been set aside from trolling the internet for meet results. WMA records from Linz, set in March, were finally recorded on the WMA “official” record page on May 20th. Some of the world records set in Boston have yet to appear on the WMA site – due to the lack of paperwork being submitted to Sandy Pashkin. And then of course, National Masters News adds to the confusion by declaring that certain events are no longer considered world records, printing rumor rather than fact.
Meanwhile folks work very hard to set records and it appears to be a crapshoot if these records will ever be recognized by the record keeping Tsars as “official” for a wide variety of reasons, failure to submit paperwork, lost paperwork, no rail on the inside of the track, no wind gauge recordings, you name it.
There needs to be an electronic system for submitting the necessary data to some central record keeping location. While this is unlikely to happen with WMA – it certainly can happen with the USATF – or USATF- Masters – and it need to happen now. Enough of this back of the notebook, on the side of the shoebox record keeping. It is time to move beyond the purple ditto sheets of yesterday to grown up electronic records that can be filed within hours of a meet’s completion. That way the necessary data can be submitted,meet directors can know that they did it properly, and athletes who have worked so hard to make these marks can get credit for them quickly. And those who compete against them can know to what point the goal posts have been moved.
“W40-49 4×800 Relay Athena Track Club
(Terri Cassel, Mary Grene, Michaeli Smith, Lorraine Jasper) 9:55.86 US, World
WMA does not list an indoor women’s 4×800 record.”
Actually, the WMA does list records for this event, though they are currently mis-labeled as 4×400 and include a 4×400 mark for the 35-39AG which adds further to the confusion. Athena Track Club broke the previous 4×800 world record of 10:15.98 set by a Canadian team. I’d also like to point out that the New England USATF records page does not includes Athena’s WR breaking 4×400. I wonder how many other marks might have been missed?
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