Race’s missing few metres cost champion athlete her ranking
AN ATHLETE has lost her position as Britain’s all-time fourth fastest female 10km runner after officials discovered a charity run was 23 metres too short.
Charlotte Arter, 28, the UK 10,000m champion, ran 31:31 at this year’s Age UK Leeds Abbey Dash. It left her trailing only Paula Radcliffe’s 30:21, Liz Mccolgan’s 30:39 and Wendy Sly’s 31:29, and she said at the time it was “great to be in the history books”.
But officials had made “slight alterations in the course landscape” to the race so it ran past the town hall – meaning it did not measure the full 10km.
“As you are aware, we had a very fast field of the top UK elite athletes competing in one of the UK’S favourite 10km road races,” said organisers. “The race distance has been reassessed after the event and due to slight alterations in the course landscape, the race distance was found to be short by 23 metres. This is approximately four seconds for athletes on a time of 29 minutes for 10km.
“This may be a small margin and still equates to a very fast time, but unfortunately times recorded at the event will not be recognised by UK Athletics and Power of 10. We would like to apologise for this error and reassure you that the race will be relicensed for 2020.”
It means thousands of runners’ times at the event will no longer be recognised by UK Athletics.
World 50km record holder Aly Dixon was also among those running in the event on October 27. “Kudos to the organisers for remeasuring but gutting for athletes who thought they had ran a PB,” she wrote on Twitter. “My watch measured it spot on but I know they aren’t 100 per cent accurate.”