Pace setting taking the breeze out of distance records

Pace setting is taking the breeze out of top-class athletics distance records

You can stick world athletics records where there are pacemakers involved.

On Monday, I flicked on to the London Marathon, where there were runners out in front wearing American football referees’ shirts and going like the wind. On closer inspection, each had PACE written on their shirts.

They were being paid to haul the field through at world-record pace and then pull out at about the 30-kilometre mark.

It seems wrong because they are breaking the breeze for the chasers who can draft in behind them, to use the cycling term.

It happens everywhere now, especially in the Diamond League meets in Europe as promoters seek world marks at their venues.

There are no pacemakers at the Olympics and Commonwealth Games.

Well not officially anyway, because the Kenyans often run as teams.

Insiders accept it as part of the sport these days. They argue that it stops middle-distance fields dawdling along in boring fashion until a sprint at the finish.

Manawatu athletes have been paid expenses and incentives to be the rabbits in Classic Series races.

Meanwhile, the women’s marathon has got complicated.

There is a women’s-only record, which Kenyan Mary Keitany set in London on Sunday, assisted by pacemakers of course, in a womenonly race.

There is also a mixed-gender record, held by Paula Radcliffe since 2003, but now considered only a world’s best when the marathon is run alongside hairylegged men, who are extra-fast pacesetters.

So it’s OK to have the pace set by a woman, but not by a man.

It’s because women run a marathon an average of two minutes faster when paced by a male.

Councils get NZGP over the line

Full marks to the two Manawatu local bodies for spearheading the campaign to retain the New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild. Had they not got support from the councils in the lower North Island and the other car clubs, whose motor racing track is Manfeild, the grand prix would have gone.

Hampton Downs would have had to go it alone because they wouldn’t have gained political support from the Waikato councils who had their fill with the V8 Supercars in Hamilton.

Our councils are demanding more at the grand prix, more entertainment for where spectators still sit on boards on a grassed bank and need to see name Kiwi drivers involved somehow.

What game were you watching?

The best-and-fairest player ratings, which have been part of club rugby coverage in the Manawatu Standard since way before my tenure, often provoke that response.

Yes, way back even when players pulled up their socks and didn’t deface their carcasses with tatts.

The idea is to judge players who stand out and keep their noses clean. Usually, the best players over the season came to the top. It takes concentration to get it right because you’re looking for individuals when the team performance is paramount.

So countless times we have been accused by one-eyed folk of looking at a different game, blah, blah.

On my first Saturday, I awarded three best-and-fairest points to a Varsity No 8 who wasn’t even playing. Never did that again.

But times have changed. Gone are the days of ferocious footwork and uppercuts. In those times, referees would sometimes tell a victim he deserved to get socked and play would carry on.

Now foul play has all but disappeared and the game is better for it. There would be no place for Meads, Shaw and Loe in today’s rugby. Even All Black prop Joe Moody is finding that out.

Recently at Rongotea, a forward was the best player on the paddock, but he was skirmishing for most of the game so the points went to the next best, who was in a well-beaten Te Kawau side.

Often as a club game wound down, we felt we had our best-andfairest men sorted, only for one of them to be binned and thus ruled out.

Now though, players can be carded for team penalties or daft things such as Beauden’s flailing fingers, so a yellow isn’t necessarily a mortal sin.

There was a time when the Manawatu best-and-fairest winner won a pair of quality trousers, until we had a spate of shared winners and the miffed menswear sponsor pulled the strides.

Army, air force go silent

The air force seems to be frustrating the city council when it comes to the Anzac Day dawn service.

Tuesday’s programme listed a 6am flypast over The Square, as arranged. Again nothing, the same as at last year’s, even though there’s a squadron of T6C Texan IIS at Ohakea. The only low flying came from one lonely mallard duck, until a noisy Harvard led a gaggle of three aircraft flew over four hours later.

Rifle volleys have always been an integral part of the service, but again the army reneged. It would have capped off the most professional service yet.