Proposed revision of European and World records

Oiriallach

Interesting proposals from European Athletics regarding records: Record "revolution" plan. Ireland's Pierce O'Callaghan led the project team which came up with this.

If these proposals are implemented, Sonia O'Sullivan's European 2000m record will go. Would it then make sense for national records to be revised also, or should they be left as they are?

RayCun

I think it's pretty crazy.

Yes, undoubtedly some of the records being removed are tainted. But some of them are clean. And the clean ones should not be removed.

It's the old criminal justice thing. I'd rather some guilty people went free than have some innocent people jailed. In this case, I'd rather keep some doped records on the books than remove the recognition of clean athletes.

(I agree with the idea of removing records set by athletes who dope, even if it can't be proven that they were doping at the time they set the record)

Tombo2001

RayCun wrote: »

I think it's pretty crazy.

Yes, undoubtedly some of the records being removed are tainted. But some of them are clean. And the clean ones should not be removed.

It's the old criminal justice thing. I'd rather some guilty people went free than have some innocent people jailed. In this case, I'd rather keep some doped records on the books than remove the recognition of clean athletes.

(I agree with the idea of removing records set by athletes who dope, even if it can't be proven that they were doping at the time they set the record)

But the thing is we don't know which ones are clean.

What they are trying to say is that with the following characteristics, they believe with a high degree of likelihood that the record is sound.

I think there will be a lot of emotional attachment to some of the records. For example Paula Radcliffe's record. However if a Russian had set that record, people would question it - its not enough to say - well its Paula Radcliffe, so we trust her.

RayCun

Tombo2001 wrote: »

But the thing is we don't know which ones are clean.

and we don't know which ones aren't

The proposal is saying, "we're pretty sure some of these records are dirty, we're not sure which ones, so we'll remove all of them to be safe"

I'm pretty sure some of those records are clean, I'm not sure which ones, but they should all stay to be safe.

Tombo2001

RayCun wrote: »

and we don't know which ones aren't

The proposal is saying, "we're pretty sure some of these records are dirty, we're not sure which ones, so we'll remove all of them to be safe"

I'm pretty sure some of those records are clean, I'm not sure which ones, but they should all stay to be safe.

That's fair - double injustice to the clean athletes if they are punished in this way, almost sends a message that you might as well have doped anyway.

Your point on dopers being stripped of records is a fair one. I'd also extend it to prior medals - for example a number of Russian athletes who were caught at the London Olympics still have medals from Beijing.

robinph

There will be a point for all athletics records where it is just never going to be possible to break them due to the limits of the human body, pole vault might be an exception as technology and technique could keep that going upwards for a long time yet.

If the emphasis was on winning the race rather than if someone completes it in X seconds then the records will just become a mildly interesting thing for statos to worry about, but the rest of us can be interested in watching a race where the time doesn't matter. You can still then wipe peoples wins from the books if found guilty of a doping offence in exactly the same way as now, but the question over who was the fastest/ highest/ longest of all time doesn't matter anymore as it was the competition that was the whole point, not the time.

Tombo2001

robinph wrote: »

There will be a point for all athletics records where it is just never going to be possible to break them due to the limits of the human body, pole vault might be an exception as technology and technique could keep that going upwards for a long time yet.

If the emphasis was on winning the race rather than if someone completes it in X seconds then the records will just become a mildly interesting thing for statos to worry about, but the rest of us can be interested in watching a race where the time doesn't matter. You can still then wipe peoples wins from the books if found guilty of a doping offence in exactly the same way as now, but the question over who was the fastest/ highest/ longest of all time doesn't matter anymore as it was the competition that was the whole point, not the time.

I think that's a truism insofar as yes you are right, but on the other hand world records will continue to be broken for a long long period to come.

The caveat to this of course is that many current world records may be unbreakable - e.g. FloJo or the East Germans who hold the 400m and 800m records.

Chivito550

RayCun wrote: »

I think it's pretty crazy.

Yes, undoubtedly some of the records being removed are tainted. But some of them are clean. And the clean ones should not be removed.

It's the old criminal justice thing. I'd rather some guilty people went free than have some innocent people jailed. In this case, I'd rather keep some doped records on the books than remove the recognition of clean athletes.

(I agree with the idea of removing records set by athletes who dope, even if it can't be proven that they were doping at the time they set the record)

+1

This nonsense is even more farcical than the actual drug taking. Would rather keep dirty records for the sake of the clean ones. Who says future records will be clean either.

So Jonathon Edwards and Colin Jackson both lose their WRs, two athletes without a sniff of doping suspicion to their name. Also you might have to dig down quite far in all time lists to find the supposed new record under their criteria. Take Long jump for example. If Mike Powell loses his WR, next in line is Bob Beamon's legendary leap in 1968. No chance that will hit the criteria needed, so one of the all time transcending moments in the history of our sport will not count.

Then, if you are going to scrap records, you have to modify the all time list too for the sake of consistency, meaning legendary performances by Herb Elliot and Dick Fosbery must be scrapped too.

Tombo2001

Chivito550 wrote: »

+1

This nonsense is even more farcical than the actual drug taking. Would rather keep dirty records for the sake of the clean ones. Who says future records will be clean either.

So Jonathon Edwards and Colin Jackson both lose their WRs, two athletes without a sniff of doping suspicion to their name. Also you might have to dig down quite far in all time lists to find the supposed new record under their criteria. Take Long jump for example. If Mike Powell loses his WR, next in line is Bob Beamon's legendary leap in 1968. No chance that will hit the criteria needed, so one of the all time transcending moments in the history of our sport will not count.

Then, if you are going to scrap records, you have to modify the all time list too for the sake of consistency, meaning legendary performances by Herb Elliot and Dick Fosbery must be scrapped too.

Worth noting that Pierce O'Callaghan is main spokesperson on this issue from within the administration of European athletics, former Irish race walker.

While overall I agree with you, the counterpoint to your argument is Marie-Jose Perec; arguably the greatest 400m runner ever and afaik no doping concern with her; however she has never held a world record or come close.

Two wrongs don't make a right I suppose; the best thing to do here is take the records that its pretty obvious there was doping involved, and wipe them. However the framework for doing this is not there.

Chivito550

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Worth noting that Pierce O'Callaghan is main spokesperson on this issue from within the administration of European athletics, former Irish race walker.

What in heaven's name has that got to do with anything? How does that give this rubbish more credibility?

average_runner

Tombo2001 wrote: »

Worth noting that Pierce O'Callaghan is main spokesperson on this issue from within the administration of European athletics, former Irish race walker.

While overall I agree with you, the counterpoint to your argument is Marie-Jose Perec; arguably the greatest 400m runner ever and afaik no doping concern with her; however she has never held a world record or come close.

Two wrongs don't make a right I suppose; the best thing to do here is take the records that its pretty obvious there was doping involved, and wipe them. However the framework for doing this is not there.

Maybe they should take the medals also. Why stop at the records ?

For me its a complete joke, there is more likely to be new dirty records now with the amount of money in the sport.

So do we reset every year?

ultrapercy

It looks like a desperate attempt to look like something is being done while actually doing nothing of any value. Raycun suggestion of wiping records and medals of proven cheaters regardless is a good one. Also an athlete with a proven doping history should also not be allowed use pre conviction performances as a means of gaining entries or invites to races or meets. (Maybe this is already the case I'm not sure). Trying to rewrite history is futile putting real deterents in place for the future would be meaningful.

EC1000

Given that it is impossible to tell which are true records and which are tainted (not all doping methods leave a trace), surely it would make more sense to just scrap all T&F times/distances and start again - i.e. have a "modern era" or "post soviet/eastern european/BALCO era" set of records. The lack of credibility due to certain records being on the books (FloJo being an obvious example) leads to all records being tainted imho.

Then again, I'm far from certain that we are at a place where we can necessarily trust new records so this whole exercise is probably a bit pointless right now.

These types of measures would be far more effective if introduced in concert with life time bans for first offence, etc. The deterrent to doping is not strong enough currently.

RayCun

ultrapercy wrote: »

Raycun suggestion of wiping records and medals of proven cheaters regardless is a good one.

(not my suggestion, it is one of the proposals)

robinph

average_runner wrote: »

So do we reset every year?

That would be a reasonable way of taking the focus away from world records and making sport about the competition instead. Nobody cares who hit the fastest server in Wimbledon, who scored the most goals in a World Cup, who got the most holes in one, who can row the fastest, etc, it's all about who won that year.

Athletics is in a relatively unique in sport that there is so much profile given to fastest/ furthest/ highest rather than the competition.

Chivito550

robinph wrote: »

That would be a reasonable way of taking the focus away from world records and making sport about the competition instead. Nobody cares who hit the fastest server in Wimbledon, who scored the most goals in a World Cup, who got the most holes in one, who can row the fastest, etc, it's all about who won that year.

Athletics is in a relatively unique in sport that there is so much profile given to fastest/ furthest/ highest rather than the competition.

That's because athletics is a sport so easily measured. Maybe we should turn off the clock at the London Marathon so, and somebody looking for sub 3 hours can make do with 3265th place instead with no time.

For the record, people do care about who scored most goals in the World Cup. It's called the Golden Boot (officially the Golden Shoe) and is talked about constantly when the World Cup comes around, so poor example.

If they want to take the focus away from the clock and measuring tape then do away with qualification standards and implement a qualification system based on competition. All this nonsense being proposed is just political talk by essentially politicians.

average_runner

Chivito550 wrote: »

That's because athletics is a sport so easily measured. Maybe we should turn off the clock at the London Marathon so, and somebody looking for sub 3 hours can make do with 3265th place instead with no time.

For the record, people do care about who scored most goals in the World Cup. It's called the Golden Boot (officially the Golden Shoe) and is talked about constantly when the World Cup comes around, so poor example.

If they want to take the focus away from the clock and measuring tape then do away with qualification standards and implement a qualification system based on competition. All this nonsense being proposed is just political talk by essentially politicians.

Also what would Paddy Power do if we took everything away!!
There be the Paddy Power clock:D

robinph

Chivito550 wrote: »

That's because athletics is a sport so easily measured. Maybe we should turn off the clock at the London Marathon so, and somebody looking for sub 3 hours can make do with 3265th place instead with no time.

But those in the masses are racing the clock and not each other. The guys at the front should be racing each other and not the clock.

Chivito550 wrote: »

For the record, people do care about who scored most goals in the World Cup. It's called the Golden Boot (officially the Golden Shoe) and is talked about constantly when the World Cup comes around, so poor example.

Can you name all the previous winners of the World Cup?
Can you name all the previous winners of the golden boot?

People only care about those stats during the event, but is soon forgotten afterwards and will only come up in the pub quiz or Question Of Sport. A year later nobody knows who it was.

Chivito550 wrote: »

If they want to take the focus away from the clock and measuring tape then do away with qualification standards and implement a qualification system based on competition.

There is no qualification standard for other sports. The teams taking part in the World Cup are the ones that won each qualification round so you can end up with unexpected teams making it through to rounds they otherwise wouldn't if you just based it on their world rankings.

average_runner

robinph wrote: »

But those in the masses are racing the clock and not each other. The guys at the front should be racing each other and not the clock.



Can you name all the previous winners of the World Cup?
Can you name all the previous winners of the golden boot?

People only care about those stats during the event, but is soon forgotten afterwards and will only come up in the pub quiz or Question Of Sport. A year later nobody knows who it was.


There is no qualification standard for other sports. The teams taking part in the World Cup are the ones that won each qualification round so you can end up with unexpected teams making it through to rounds they otherwise wouldn't if you just based it on their world rankings.

Golden boot is a big thing, amount of bets that go on it.

Chivito550

robinph wrote: »

But those in the masses are racing the clock and not each other. The guys at the front should be racing each other and not the clock.



Can you name all the previous winners of the World Cup?
Can you name all the previous winners of the golden boot?

People only care about those stats during the event, but is soon forgotten afterwards and will only come up in the pub quiz or Question Of Sport. A year later nobody knows who it was.


There is no qualification standard for other sports. The teams taking part in the World Cup are the ones that won each qualification round so you can end up with unexpected teams making it through to rounds they otherwise wouldn't if you just based it on their world rankings.

Why shift the goalposts for yourself? The elites care about their PBs as much as you do yours. Can't have it both ways.

And I actually can name all the winners of the golden boot. Some of the all time legends have won it, and they are legends partly because of it: Gary Lineker, Paulo Rossi, Eusebio, Gerd Muller, Mario Kempes, Gregorz Lato, Davor Suker, the list goes on. Winning the golden boot is highly prestigious.

Not sure what your last point is all about. I said that athletics should do away with qualification standards if moving away from the clock is their goal.

Kristopherus

Pierce O'Callaghan has just been on SS News explaining the rational for the review.

walshb

Until a record is shown and proved to be dirty then it's "clean" and should be left alone. An incredibly stupid proposal.

robinph

Chivito550 wrote: »

Why shift the goalposts for yourself? The elites care about their PBs as much as you do yours. Can't have it both ways.

It's not shifting the goalposts though, you are just looking at the wrong set of goal posts. The target that is being aimed for is making interesting TV and therefore money, not statistics of who ran the fastest. The times are just a side issue to making money.

The primary reason for the elites running is in order to make a TV spectacle to earn money for the sponsors. People are being put off watching elite athletics because they don't believe it. How do you make it believable and interesting to watch again? Is it by having time trials of one person hidden behind a bunch of people in Shaftsbury Harriers vests against the clock, or by having races for the win?

Nobody cares about the rest of us running a marathon, except for our mums...and even then it's debatable. We are certainly not doing anything for making the TV coverage interesting.

Yes one guy from Jamacia running a fast 100m time will sell a bunch of tickets and up the TV viewing, but if he's not there then nobody is interested. Make the whole thing about who will win the race rather than if that one person will break a world record. If that one person who can break whatever world record isn't there then you have nothing, and that is what needs to change.

Chivito550 wrote: »

And I actually can name all the winners of the golden boot. Some of the all time legends have won it, and they are legends partly because of it: Gary Lineker, Paulo Rossi, Eusebio, Gerd Muller, Mario Kempes, Gregorz Lato, Davor Suker, the list goes on. Winning the golden boot is highly prestigious.

You do know that is odd though to know those details and very very far from being something you could consider general knowledge for all but the most dedicated sports fan? I've only ever heard of two of those names, and one of those is only because he sells crisps. Whilst most people with even a passing knowledge of football would probably be able to name all but one of the countries to have won the World Cup.

Chivito550 wrote: »

Not sure what your last point is all about. I said that athletics should do away with qualification standards if moving away from the clock is their goal.

Just pointing out that qualification standards are not something that applies in most sports that have the biggest TV viewing figures and therefore make the most money. It's not a crazy idea to do away with qualification standards if you make it about the competition between people/ teams/ nations rather than the clock and measuring tape.

Chivito550

robinph wrote: »

It's not shifting the goalposts though, you are just looking at the wrong set of goal posts. The target that is being aimed for is making interesting TV and therefore money, not statistics of who ran the fastest. The times are just a side issue to making money.

The primary reason for the elites running is in order to make a TV spectacle to earn money for the sponsors. People are being put off watching elite athletics because they don't believe it. How do you make it believable and interesting to watch again? Is it by having time trials of one person hidden behind a bunch of people in Shaftsbury Harriers vests against the clock, or by having races for the win?

Nobody cares about the rest of us running a marathon, except for our mums...and even then it's debatable. We are certainly not doing anything for making the TV coverage interesting.

Yes one guy from Jamacia running a fast 100m time will sell a bunch of tickets and up the TV viewing, but if he's not there then nobody is interested. Make the whole thing about who will win the race rather than if that one person will break a world record. If that one person who can break whatever world record isn't there then you have nothing, and that is what needs to change.



You do know that is odd though to know those details and very very far from being something you could consider general knowledge for all but the most dedicated sports fan? I've only ever heard of two of those names, and one of those is only because he sells crisps. Whilst most people with even a passing knowledge of football would probably be able to name all but one of the countries to have won the World Cup.


Just pointing out that qualification standards are not something that applies in most sports that have the biggest TV viewing figures and therefore make the most money. It's not a crazy idea to do away with qualification standards if you make it about the competition between people/ teams/ nations rather than the clock and measuring tape.

I actually agree about scraping qualification standards, as a way of qualifying for majors, which is why I brought that bit up.

But I disagree that people are more interested in a race, over the clock. Maybe in distance running you have a point. The best races are rarely the fastest, and the fastest are often time trials. But the sprints are different. There are no pacers, so fast running and good racing go hand in hand. And for field events you HAVE to measure, otherwise you've no idea who wins.

Then you have aspiring athletes, club athletes etc who like to measure themselves against those better than them. You can't take the clock out of our sport. Our sport is built around the clock.

Those names in football I listed are all time greats. The fact you don't know who Mario Kempes is is pretty irrelevant really.

Tombo2001

robinph wrote: »

It's not shifting the goalposts though, you are just looking at the wrong set of goal posts. The target that is being aimed for is making interesting TV and therefore money, not statistics of who ran the fastest. The times are just a side issue to making money.

The primary reason for the elites running is in order to make a TV spectacle to earn money for the sponsors. People are being put off watching elite athletics because they don't believe it. How do you make it believable and interesting to watch again? Is it by having time trials of one person hidden behind a bunch of people in Shaftsbury Harriers vests against the clock, or by having races for the win?

Nobody cares about the rest of us running a marathon, except for our mums...and even then it's debatable. We are certainly not doing anything for making the TV coverage interesting.

Yes one guy from Jamacia running a fast 100m time will sell a bunch of tickets and up the TV viewing, but if he's not there then nobody is interested. Make the whole thing about who will win the race rather than if that one person will break a world record. If that one person who can break whatever world record isn't there then you have nothing, and that is what needs to change.



You do know that is odd though to know those details and very very far from being something you could consider general knowledge for all but the most dedicated sports fan? I've only ever heard of two of those names, and one of those is only because he sells crisps. Whilst most people with even a passing knowledge of football would probably be able to name all but one of the countries to have won the World Cup.


Just pointing out that qualification standards are not something that applies in most sports that have the biggest TV viewing figures and therefore make the most money. It's not a crazy idea to do away with qualification standards if you make it about the competition between people/ teams/ nations rather than the clock and measuring tape.

You've hit on an important point there.

We are all coming at this from within the prism of being interested in athletics, and some of us (not me) of being high level athletes.

My assumption is that this move is aimed at the fact at Athletics has reached a tipping point where people just don't believe it any more - where it is only really hitting the headlines for big doping scandals and the wider public has switched off. Full stop, doesn't care.

This is a fact, perhaps somewhat clouded by the Usain Bolt factor, but its a fact.

So it needs something big to win people back. And this is something big; its saying 'lets set the clock back to zero and start again'.

And maybe that's more important than being fair or not fair to clean athletes who have gone before.

Obviously a lot of people here don't agree. And they might be right.

But its a lot easier to whinge than actually do something.

Administrators in this case of European athletics are tasked with actually doing things. And as a result easy targets. Thankless task.

In this case, they have put forward a proposal; its being discussed and debated. The response means they probably wont do it, but its certainly not the worst idea I've ever heard.

robinph

Chivito550 wrote: »

...you HAVE to measure, otherwise you've no idea who wins.

It's not about getting rid of the measures, it's that the focus on world records should be removed from deciding if a performance is worthwhile or not.

They have clocks and measurements in plenty of other sports to determine who won or goes through to the next round. But nobody cares who cycled up a mountain quickest ever for example, it's just who got there first on that day. If it happened to be the quickest assent then "meh", other than a minor talking point for a minute or two before the ad break they get back onto talking about the race itself.

walshb

I can only speak for myself, bit I love finding out who ran fastest or jumped highest or threw farthest. Who cycled a certain tour faster than others etc etc. Years of collecting Guinness Books of Records...To suggest that fans (more so true fans) don't take this too seriously seems off to me.

walshb

I hope they don't scrap Flo Jo's 10.49......something to do with an inaccurate wind reading...

Chivito550

Tombo2001 wrote: »

You've hit on an important point there.

We are all coming at this from within the prism of being interested in athletics, and some of us (not me) of being high level athletes.

My assumption is that this move is aimed at the fact at Athletics has reached a tipping point where people just don't believe it any more - where it is only really hitting the headlines for big doping scandals and the wider public has switched off. Full stop, doesn't care.

This is a fact, perhaps somewhat clouded by the Usain Bolt factor, but its a fact.

So it needs something big to win people back. And this is something big; its saying 'lets set the clock back to zero and start again'.

And maybe that's more important than being fair or not fair to clean athletes who have gone before.

Obviously a lot of people here don't agree. And they might be right.

But its a lot easier to whinge than actually do something.

Administrators in this case of European athletics are tasked with actually doing things. And as a result easy targets. Thankless task.

In this case, they have put forward a proposal; its being discussed and debated. The response means they probably wont do it, but its certainly not the worst idea I've ever heard.

The world championships in London are expected to be a full sell out of 60k per night. The World Championships in Beijing hit 50k per night, same for Moscow. Daegu hit around 35k average despite Korea having no decent athletes. The Euros in Zurich and Amsterdam were well attended. I was at a Diamond League meet in Paris which had 40k despite Bolt pulling out a week in advance. These aren't the figures of a sport which nobody cares about now are they. I've been to each and every Championships outdoors since 2010 (excluding Helsinki Euros in 2012) so am in a good position to comment on the numbers showing up. I'm not going by press releases, I'm going by what I have seen, in front of my eyes. Globally there's a lot of interest there.

There was a pole vault only indoor meet in France back in February which had 5000 at it. This is for nothing but Pole vault.

Just because something isn't big in Ireland doesn't mean it is the same everywhere. Mind you, as was seen when Thomas Barr came 4th in Rio, Irish people care when it suits them.

Chivito550

robinph wrote: »

It's not about getting rid of the measures, it's that the focus on world records should be removed from deciding if a performance is worthwhile or not.

They have clocks and measurements in plenty of other sports to determine who won or goes through to the next round. But nobody cares who cycled up a mountain quickest ever for example, it's just who got there first on that day. If it happened to be the quickest assent then "meh", other than a minor talking point for a minute or two before the ad break they get back onto talking about the race itself.

Yes, that's because each course is different in length, topography etc. That won't happen on a track unless you start making the 400m the 402m for one Olympics, then the 397m for the next one, and so on and so forth. Set standard distance on standard track will always have focus on a time. It's inbred into us.

robinph

Resetting the records just says that they are out of ideas and that records are their only selling point.