A BOLD STEP FORWARD FOR ATHLETICS
Resetting records is an encouraging and bold step towards forcing athletics into a new era of credibility
THURSDAY, August 18 was one of the hottest days in Rio last August. On that day, Tom Barr gave probably the best track performance by an Irishman in 60 years. He came fourth in the Olympic final of the 400m hurdles, missing out on a bronze medal by 0.05 seconds.
Barr emerged into the cool of the stadium underground after the race. There, in a basement facility being used as an interview area, he talked about cheating, and about the probability that people would sniff suspiciously around his efforts.
Barr had broken the Irish record in qualifying for the final, and he set a new one again in the final. This was after spending much of 2016 hampered by injuries. Even as he spoke, social media was passing judgement.
His accusers included an Irish journalist supposed to be covering the Olympic Games. Instead of listening to Barr address the topic, this reporter chose to stay away and share his doubts on Twitter.
It is an indication of the sickness eating away at athletics that behaviour like that passes for an acceptable level of commentary.
Cheating has destroyed the sport so extensively that the possibility of an athlete like Barr, enormously talented from a young age and whose career progression made his Rio performance explicable, having his performance recognised is nearing impossible now.
‘I know I’m clean,’ he said after the final. ‘Anyone who’s been with me all through the years knows I’m clean. I’m not hiding anything.’
There is no evidence to suggest otherwise, and his willingness to devote much of an interview after the race of his life to the topic did him much credit.
This is the environment in which people like Tom Barr must now try and compete. Athletes can never succeed entirely free of the shadow of doubt, and there is no more sorrowful legacy of decades of wrongdoing on an individual and often state-sponsored basis. That is why the proposal to reset world records made before 2005 is a good idea and one that must be acted on.
The year 2005 is being proposed as the cut-off because it was then that the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) began storing blood and urine samples collected from athletes for testing.
And under the proposals produced by European Athletics this week, one of the criteria for recognising a record is that the athlete’s sample should be available for retesting for 10 years.
Hostility to the report was instant, and led by women’s marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe. She has not dismissed legal action as an option as she fights to keep a record that she insists was set fairly. Radcliffe ran the London marathon in 2 hours 15 minutes and 25 seconds in 2003, which would fall two years outside the limit proposed by European Athletics.
There will be many athletes like Radcliffe, furious that their achievements could be forgotten because of the sins of others. The report is worth reading in full, however, as it deals with the issue of what a record actually is.
‘Record recognition is a right and task of governing bodies. A record is not in itself an award and “holding” a record does not mean it’s a possession of the athlete,’ it states.
A record is only worthwhile if set under properly supervised conditions and overseen by a credible governing body. Credibility is central to this entire debate. Athletics authorities have none, given the disastrous way scandals have been handled in recent decades.
This, however, can nurse the sport towards a new start. The IAAF have made encouraging noises about adopting the European proposals, and it would be a rare meaningful act on their part were they to do so.
Sympathy for those who would see their status change on the removal of a world record is easy to feel, but their anger goes beyond moral outrage.
World records are lucrative for athletes. They can guarantee large appearance fees and they are a blue-chip association even into retirement. It is easy to understand why athletes will not easily surrender them.
But they do not own the records, and the sport has a duty that runs far beyond the sensitivities of Paula Radcliffe. There are no quick changes that will stop athletes like Tom Barr finding the best days of their lives turned into public inquisitions.
Cheating can never be prevented but suspicion will not fall so indiscriminately if the sport shows itself to be serious about testing everyone and catching the miscreants.
This move is only a start, but it is a bold one.