It is always exciting for me to read the news coverage about new records being set. Talk about March Madness, USATF has seen three very recent American records set: Shalane Flanagan’s 47:03 for 15 km on March 9 at the Gate River Run/15 km Championships in Jacksonville, FL (FL14001DL with AV status), Bernard Lagat’s 13:19 for 5 km at Carlsbad 5000 on March 30 in Carlsbad, CA (CA11026RS with A status), and Maria Mitcha’s 1:31:09 for 20 km at Race-walk World Cup Trials on March 30th in Whiting, NJ (NJ14505JHP with AV status).
Each news story simply writes about the athlete and the record time run, but rarely addresses the records process. We know that these new records are really pending. Hopefully these athletes are clean, the event was Sanctioned, the course holds up, and the timing was done correctly. Great to see that two of the three courses were validated prior to the records were set.
Makes sense to me having the validation completed before the fact. Events with a fast course, large prize purses, and a talented field of athletes certainly increases the possibility of new records being set. Course pre-validation seems like the right thing to do for events meeting the fast course, large prize purse, and talented athletes’ criteria. Why wait until after the fact?
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