If losing a world record due to steroids is one of the worst things in sports, losing a record despite not taking stimulants must be a close second. That is the situation these days in the world of athletics. Under what is dubbed a revolutionary new proposal from European athletics, world records set before 2005 will no longer be recognized. And any record after that year would only be recognized if it meets specific criteria. The standards proposed include that world and European records can only be recognized if the performance is achieved at competitions on a list of approved international events where the highest standards of officiating and technical equipment can be guaranteed; that the athlete has been subject to an agreed number of doping control tests in the months leading up to the performance; and the doping control sample taken after the record is stored and available for re-testing for 10 years.
Existing records that do not fit the new criteria would remain on an all-time list but would not be recognized as world records.
The year 2005 was chosen because athletics’ governing body, the International Association of Athletics Federations, has only kept blood and urine samples since then. Before that, drug testing was either not given or not as advanced.
The proposal could be ratified by the IAAF in August, just in time for the London World Championships.
The proposal is a response to last year’s McLaren report, which uncovered widespread doping in sport and in athletics in particular. Russian athletes are currently banned from international competition unless they can satisfy strict criteria to show they are clean.
This rewriting of the record books would mean Mike Powell’s long jump world record, Florence Griffith-Joyner’s 100-meter and 200-meter world records and Britain’s Paula Radcliffe’s marathon world record would be scrapped. Olympic champions including Michael Johnson, Hicham El Guerrouj, Jonathan Edwards and Kenenisa Bekele will fall off the world record list.
As all records set before 2005 are now under threat, this would constitutes almost half of the 146 male and female indoor and outdoor records. This includes seven of the eight men’s field events and the women’s 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m.
Obviously, the proposal is facing a backlash from clean athletes who are now confronted with the prospect of losing their world records. They have had to train for years, compete against cheats, were not provided a level playing field, saw their sport dragged through the mud due to cheats and now because of cheats stand to lose their records, moments and memories.
Clean athletes are still in the majority so should not get caught up in this sweep, for it lumps the good with the bad.
All world records eventually fall. Somebody always comes along and breaks them but what is not fair is when somebody decides that a record achieved the right way is no longer valid. For the IAAF to suddenly come out and say it’s not sure whether a record was made legally, does not want to take chances, so annuls all of them at one go, is too much. There is no foolproof testing procedure capable of catching every cheat. Is a record set after 2015 totally clean and one in 1995 not?
The credibility of athletics has been undermined by several high-profile doping scandals during recent decades. Reform is needed but in an attempt to make a clean break with the sport’s doping scandals, the IAAF is now stealing the dreams of athletes as well as the public who looked up to these superstars of the past as heroes and role models.
Granted, world records are meaningless if people don’t believe them. But it’s not the fault of honest athletes that over the years the sport did not police itself properly. It is unfair to rewrite the past.
