WMA world records still train wreck: 1500/mile bests mashed up
Guess what, stat-mavens! We have a rare instance of not one but two women’s age-group records being the same in the 1500 and mile! Don’t believe me? Check out the latest update of the world outdoor records page on the official site—World Masters Athletics. Yeah, yeah. I know. It’s just a booger mistake. But when Andy Hecker first spotted this flub recently, he wrote to Eurovets chief Dieter Massin, who made no attempt to fix it. He just forwarded the note to his records man in Sweden.
This is a screen shot taken February 14, 2011 (with my added snarky question marks). By the time you read this, it might be corrected. One hopes.
Here’s how Dieter responded to Andy’s query:
I am not the official statistician of EVAA, I am “only” the president (see: http://www.evaa.ch/about-us.html). However I try to help you:
a) the below mentioned performances are results of 1500 m, because in Europe there are not so many mile-events for veterans,
b) all records are listed on EVAA-website (www.evaa.ch), see also here: http://www.evaa.ch/files/ev101231.pdf,
c) all records are permanently updated by the EVAA statistician Ivar Söderlind (ivar.soderlind@soc.umu.se). He gets a copy of the email,
d) regarding the writing of the city of Saarbruecken (Melitta Czerwenka Nagel), you can use “Saarbruecken” or “Saarbrücken” with Umlaut “ü”.
If you need more information, let me know,. I try to help you. In any cases I do suggest you to contact Ivar Söderlind; he is our European expert.
Kindly
Dieter Massin
Fixing this mess is easy, though. Sandy Pashkin of Oregon — the WMA Records Committee chair and records manager— can simply look up the previous W75 and W80 mile records and restore them on the site. The real record-holders are both Americans — and friends of mine. W75 mile best is 7:55.74 and belongs to Mary Harada. The W80 mile best is 9:00.52 and belongs to Gerry Davidson.
I wrote about Gerry’s record mile nearly 10 years ago.
This is no small matter. The eyes of the world will be on Sacramento this summer, and our records need to be squeaky-clean. Start with this, and then clean up the dozens of other howlers we’ve documented over the years.
6 Responses
Sandy knows already about one, I hit upon it too, but overlooked the second.
That’s encouraging! Sandy knows about it.
Can we expect a fix within the next three months?
This is pretty recent – as the record page prior to the latest “update” was correct – with my name there for the mile .
I am still waiting to see if I ever get credit for the Am 3k – but suspect that is just about hopeless. That is not Sandy’s fault – but lies with Maine USATF for not sending the FAT photo.
and thanks for noticing – I had not looked at that record recently – did not think it was going to disappear until Jeanne Deprano turns 75!
Gerry can hang on to her record until I turn 80 and try for it.
And I am waiting to see if I get credit for my indoor mile time – even with a P – I know it takes time –
What a strange remark, Ken! Clearly, Dieter Massin is trying to help and did so by delegating his expert in Sweden to do this job. Most likely, he even answered Andy Hecker in a timely manner. As to manners, Andy seems a bit lacking. I would never ever forward any correspondence to anybody without asking. He did.
And why, in the wma-record-lists, we have only the year and not the DOB of all the athletes?
ooops, sorry to be a little bit OT…
And can we expect a fix of “Saarbruecken” within the next decade?
I need to apologize to Steve Vaitones of USATFNE – as my complaint about not even a “P” for my indoor mile record was not called for. I knew that Steve was waiting until the end of the indoor season to send in the paperwork for masters records set in the USATFNE association. He sent them in the end of March – as he informed me today in a email – and I should have emailed him first before writing on this blog.
I never worry about having the paperwork done for any record I may be so fortunate as to set at a meet in the USATFNE region.
The same thing should be said about my experience at meets in Eugene. Elsewhere – well it can be a bit of a gamble as many have experienced.
Thanks for all your hard work Steve.
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