woman and junior records
The sport's global governing body for athletics, the IAAF, is very busy with records. The reason behind this is not clear to me. First the changed the procedure for marathon records and now it has confirmed that it will start recognising World Junior Indoor Records.
The 48th IAAF Congress in Daegu, South Korea, held just before the recent World Championships, approved amendments to IAAF Competition Rules and the marathon world went wild. Woman could only run world records in women only races. So Paula Radclif lost one but kept the other. The point the IAAF is trying to make is completely lost if you look at the big city marathons. There are pacemakers for all elite runners who form a human shield against wind, than there is support for giving drinks, coaching from motorbikes, people running with head sets etc.. All this is forbidden on track. Remember when the Portueges runners where pacing in Oslo? Remember it is not allowed to coach form the infield? Only water stations where you have to grap you’re on sponge or cup? So why should woman not be allowed to have a pacemaker? Pace making at the moment is difficult for females when it goes over the first 10K so males have to do it. Discrimination comes to my mind when I read this.
European junior athletes can currently lay claim to 13 world best marks in the 32 events that will be recognised, because the events are the same as for senior world indoor records.
There is a nice thing about this if you look at the high jump. It could become the longest standing world indoor junior record, getting its place in the annals of athletics history more than 33 years after it was achieved. Ukrainian high jumper Volodymyr Yashchenko, jumped 2.35m, with the straddle technique, as a teenager to win the European Athletics Indoor Championships title in Milan (1978).
Sadly, Yashchenko died in 1999 but he remains the best exponent of the old-style straddle technique that the world has ever seen. That’s one of the good things about records: you can fill books with them and then read the stories behind it.
(source European athletics)
The 48th IAAF Congress in Daegu, South Korea, held just before the recent World Championships, approved amendments to IAAF Competition Rules and the marathon world went wild. Woman could only run world records in women only races. So Paula Radclif lost one but kept the other. The point the IAAF is trying to make is completely lost if you look at the big city marathons. There are pacemakers for all elite runners who form a human shield against wind, than there is support for giving drinks, coaching from motorbikes, people running with head sets etc.. All this is forbidden on track. Remember when the Portueges runners where pacing in Oslo? Remember it is not allowed to coach form the infield? Only water stations where you have to grap you’re on sponge or cup? So why should woman not be allowed to have a pacemaker? Pace making at the moment is difficult for females when it goes over the first 10K so males have to do it. Discrimination comes to my mind when I read this.
European junior athletes can currently lay claim to 13 world best marks in the 32 events that will be recognised, because the events are the same as for senior world indoor records.
There is a nice thing about this if you look at the high jump. It could become the longest standing world indoor junior record, getting its place in the annals of athletics history more than 33 years after it was achieved. Ukrainian high jumper Volodymyr Yashchenko, jumped 2.35m, with the straddle technique, as a teenager to win the European Athletics Indoor Championships title in Milan (1978).
Sadly, Yashchenko died in 1999 but he remains the best exponent of the old-style straddle technique that the world has ever seen. That’s one of the good things about records: you can fill books with them and then read the stories behind it.
(source European athletics)
Comments