PAID TO LOSE!
Following the Ottawa Marathon a couple of weeks ago, I got a message from a Canadian correspondent, who was irked at what she described as, EPO cheat Asmae Leghzaoui winning the women’s race, and being paced all the way, by her husband/coach. She posed the question, is (that) legit?
A few days later, my Aussie colleague Mike Hurst published an interview with Derek Clayton on the 40th anniversary of Clayton’s ground-breaking marathon, 2.08.33 in Antwerp. Clayton, who had also been the first man under 2.10 ended the interview with a heartfelt, …you’ve got a thing in track and field now that I’m dead set against - pacemakers… It is ruining it…because it is about racing, it’s not about times.
Under the current doping regulations, having served her ban, there is nothing to prevent Legzhaoui competing, if race organisers want to invite her. 
Indeed, one Stateside organiser told me a couple of years ago that he deliberately invited Legzhaoui, just after her ban expired, because it would increase publicity for his race.
But there is little solidarity on this subject, except in the case of UK sprinter Dwain Chambers, who continues to be barred by a cartel of organisers from the major track meetings in Europe, including ones in his home country. The only difference seems to be that Chambers admitted drug-taking, thus attracting the ire of the establishment. Go figure!
However, there is a similar ethical question about pacemaking, to which we attach far less importance than drug-taking.
There used to be an IAAF law which stated that everybody in a race should be in there to win, and that they should put in a fair effort to do so, ie ‘honest competition’. This law dated back to the days of race-fixing, which we presume doesn’t happen nowadays, but which used to be widespread, for a variety of reasons, in the late 18th/early 19th century when gambling on foot-racing was rife.
Back then a lot of racing was head-to-head, ie, the real thing, just two people on the track; and when, as often happened, one of the runners gave up, frequently ‘falling insensible’ to the track (in the popular jargon of the day), the other athlete stopped running, since he (there were few ’she’s’ back then) had won. And get this, the time was immaterial. No one cared.
But over the years, we have become subject to the tyranny of the stopwatch, to the extent that, if someone were to win one of the best mile races you ever saw, with six guys or gals separated only by a tenth of a second, but with a finishing time of, say, ten seconds outside the world record, Joe Schmuck the Journo would inevitably write, ‘J. Doe Wins Slow Mile’.
Because it is one of the major drawbacks of track and field athletics that victory is no longer enough. That secondary measure of excellence, the stopwatch (or the tape measure) has given us the world record chase. Which the vast majority of the time ends in failure, therefore disappointment.
Back in 1984, when the post-LA Olympics tour was winding its way around Europe, one of my colleagues got recalled by his newspaper editor, who said he was tired of reading headlines like, ‘Coe/Cram/Aouita Fails to Break World Record’. So, somebody had got the message even back then.
But it had got so bad by the turn of the century that we had the extraordinary situation of Hicham El Guerrouj being paced in world championships and Olympic Games. The least of the indignities about this was that the Moroccan federation sacrificed a young miler in order to provide a springboard for El G’s finishing sprint. I wrote about this with such distaste that when El Guerrouj won his Olympic 1500/5000m double in Athens, without so much as the smell of a colleague’s shirt to assist him, El G’s coach, Abdulkader Kada came up to me after the Games, and said acidly, “I hope you’re satisfied now”.
But there is a more serious debate here, and it is about the pacemakers themselves. Because that law about ‘honest competition’ was quietly dropped around 30 years ago when my illustrious compatriots, Sebastian Coe and Steve Ovett were being paced to world records every other week, or every other day in some cases.
On very rare occasions, and some people will recall Tom Byers in Oslo 1981, a track pacemaker will hang in and win, but in the other 99 cases out of 100, the pacers will drop out, and be paid handsomely for their services, and frequently paid more than the race backmarkers.
But these people are effectively being paid to lose! How can that be ethical?
As far as marathon pacing goes, at least in Haile Geb’s world records, he has had to run the final few kilometres by himself, since clearly no pacemaker is going to be nearly as good as the world record holder. And Paula Radcliffe’s world record 2.15.25 also passes muster. But in many cases, it is different for women. Men can and frequently do pace female friends, colleagues and spouses all the way to victory and very fast times. And a sack full of greenbacks.
This seems palpably unfair to many of their competitors, who run their own race. There is also the question of intimidation or worse by male pacemakers. I was at the finish of a central European city marathon a half dozen years ago, when one woman came in fourth, limping and bloodied from a fall. A close friend who had been following the race on a bike related how she had been pushed to the ground when she began to contest the lead with a woman who was being paced by more than one male friend. The paced woman, who may not have seen the push, duly won the race, and her ‘helpers’ denied everything. There was no video record of the alleged incident, so the result stood. And an injustice was perpetrated.
It is difficult to police the whole of a marathon course, as Rosie Ruiz and several other cheats have proven over the past 30 years of mass marathons. And they are just the ones who got caught afterwards. But something needs to be done about paced women, especially if they are in a close race. How about banning pacing after 30 or 35 kilometres, for example?
How about banning pacemaking altogether?
The rationale for that can be encapsulated in just two words - Filbert Bayi. Back in early February 1974, a couple of hundred or more of us were preparing to run in the British Universities cross country, when news came through overnight from New Zealand that Bayi had taken apart Jim Ryun’s 1500 metre world record while winning the Commonwealth title. It was to be shown on TV in the early afternoon. Despite the proximity of the race, scores, if not a hundred or more crammed into the student union of the University of Surrey, to watch what turned out to be masterclass in metric miling.
Bayi zipped round the first lap in 54.9sec, already well in the lead, and kept going. It was John Walker’s breakthrough race, and the future Olympic champion and first sub-3min 50sec miler whittled away at Bayi’s lead until, on the final bend, the burly Kiwi was on the shoulder of the tiny Tanzanian. In 99 cases out of 100, when you lose a lead like that, the pursuer bursts past to victory. This was the exception. Bayi tore away again, to win in 3.32.2, breaking Ryun’s record by almost a second. And he had led every step of the way!
Despite appeals from viewers, the video of this race has yet to find its way onto Youtube. But Bayi’s mile in Kingston, Jamaica the following year is on there. Bayi employs the same tactic against similar world class opposition. With the same result.
It is a video that every aspiring middle distance runner should watch regularly; and attempt to emulate.
And the IAAF should address a situation which, like doping is bringing our sport into disrepute.
June 8th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Oy, Pat, come off it! Paula’s 2′15′25″ legit, when she was paced every step of the way by three Kenyan men? Or maybe I’m just sore, cos she ended up 1 sec. inside my own pb, run in an epic battle with Messrs Hill, Alder, Hogan and Adcocks over a hilly course in south Wales, on a summer’s day so warm that you couldn’t take the shortest line on the bends because of melting tar…
June 9th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Pat,
I admire much of your work, and I believe you absolutely nailed it with this piece. I wrote some notes for a future article on this subject, but hadn’t actually written it yet.
I do believe there is a time and place for running fast. But by and large, track and field has fallen victim to the “tyranny of the stopwatch”, as you put it. You may or may not follow the NCAA, but as I wrote in my last article, they are talking of doing away with a competition-based Regional qualifying system in favor of qualifying off of descending order time lists. It’s just ridiculous.
Thank you for a great piece.
Bryan Green
June 9th, 2009 at 9:28 am
Pat: Thanks for the wonderful blog. I particularly appreciate your columns on controversial subjects like this one. I assume everyone will agree with you because you are expressing the popular anti-pacing opinion of track/athletics insiders.
But I disagree. Yes, Bayi was a marvel. But I seem to remember that in pre-pacing days, we all hated the sit-and-kick distance races. Now we should go back to them?
At any rate, it makes no difference whether or not we want a return to Victorian days and racing: We don’t get to decide those things. The “public” does, the same public we so despise because they have lost much interest in our sport.
You can’t take world-records away from athletics any more than you remove gold medals. In the U.S. in recent years, I’ve noticed a trend among insiders and athletics and road publicists to emphasize “podium finishes.” What’s strange about this is that I don’t believe I heard this phrase before the last four or five years. I assume its popularity owes to the handful of podium finishes, but few gold medals, won by American distance runners in the same period.
Unfortunately, the American public only cares about gold, and no group of well-intentioned friends are going to succeed in changing this. (I think the rest of the world has more respect for the other Olympic medals than we do here, but it’s probably fading.) Yes, the silver and bronze medalists are tremendous athletes who put up great performances. We all know that. But who won silver behind Usain Bolt in the Beijing Olympic 100? I seriously doubt anyone knows. I can guarantee you no one in the U.S. does.
Bolt is now the biggest, most important figure in athletics (by a wide margin), but it’s not due to his 100-meter gold in Beijing. If he had won in 9.84, he’d be only slightly better known than Richard Thompson. It’s because he set a world record, and then did it again in the 200. Without these records, he’d be just a skinny kid from Jamaica. Given the declining state of athletics popularity, I don’t think anyone would want to diminish Bolt’s star power.
You can’t take the stopwatch out of running; you just can’t. And as long as we’re going to time runners, the public will want to know if they set any records. Yes, this is a curse; yes, it is a deadend, since times are doomed to improve at an ever-slower rate. But good luck changing things. The public doesn’t care how many games it took Roger Federer to win in the Paris final, or how many strokes Tiger Woods took in his last big victory, because these “numbers” just aren’t germane to tennis and golf. But in track, with our precisely measured ovals, the stopwatch numbers are important. After all, we’re all in the “progress” game; we demand that everything gets better than it was.
It’s no surprise that athletes from Derek Clayton (an old friend and co-worker, and a fierce competitor) to the present have argued that world-record chases are diminishing the sport. But there’s an obvious reason for that: Athletes know that victories are far-easier than records. Naturally, they’d rather be remembered for their first-place finishes than their world-record failures.
But again, it’s the public who gets to decide these things, not the athletes, journalists or meet promoters. It’s the public who votes with its ticket purchases and TV viewership.
I don’t have a ready solution to the problem. On the roads, I support the handicapped male vs. female “Battle of the Sexes” races. They’re easy to understand, and they attract public attention. What’s more, they remove the stopwatch/world record emphasis, and focus on head-to-head competition. But it’s a far different kind of head-to-head competition than you’re talking about, and not one we’re likely to see often on the track.
Thanks again for the provocative blog. Let the discussions and arguments rage!
June 9th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I recall that- in his hunt for the first sub-4 minute mile - Roger Bannister was paced by Chris Brasher over the latter half of an unsuccessful attempt after Brasher had jogged from the gun until Bannister made up 440 yards on him. In their successful bid in May 1954, because pace making was then illegal, Brasher and Chris Chataway had to complete the race or the record would not have been ratified. Brasher then virtually jogged the rest of the way. Chataway finished second and was encouraged to think that he too was capable of going under four minutes which he, in fact, did manage to do later.
Pacemakers are routinely paid to run to the half distance in marathon record attempts; why not employ the Bannister/Brasher lateral thinking and have the pacemakers START at the halfway point? What’s the difference? Of course, the pacemaker would have to peel off just before the end feigning exhaustion or pulled muscles otherwise the tv broadcast would be compromised as a spectacle. And this year’s Oscar for the best pulled muscle goes to….
June 9th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Pacing wasn’t allowed in high school. It was pretty clear cut even back then.
June 9th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
How about Merga’s comments before the 10k in Ottawa. He wanted to best the fastest road time run in a 10k, and was asked if he thought he could. He said he thought he had a chance as long as the weather was good and the pacers did their job.
Now I’m not 100% sure, but when I watched Spirit of the Marathon, it occurred to me that there was someone running with Deena Kastor the whole time, and he peeled off just before the final sprint.
In both of those instances I found myself wondering when road racing stopped being an individual event.
June 9th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
Amby makes a good point about meeting the public demand, whatever that might be. More and more, I think what the public demands is honest racing. A paced race can sometimes be honest, just as an unpaced race can. More often than not, though, paced and unpaced races turn into slow jogs ended by furious sprints. Like a slightly less annoying version of pursuit cycling.
Here’s a proposal: in-race bonuses. First competitor to, say, 800m and/or 1100m in a 1500 gets an equal percentage of what would have been paid to a rabbit, provided they still finish the race. And to ensure that anyone who goes after the time bonuses finishes with an honest effort, establish a cutoff time, which, if it is missed, the athlete loses a large percentage or maybe even all of the bonus.
This proposal accomplishes a couple of things, 1) people enjoy events where there is something at stake, especially if it’s money. And money needs to be highlighted in some fashion in athletics. Nobody knows what world class athletes make in athletics, but even non-fans know what football players, cricket players, baseball players, etc. make, and they accord the stars value based on the $$$ they pull down. 2) Strategy is highlighted. This kind of incentive system forces variations in strategy that are not normally seen in track racing. Tactics change completely with some racers trying for a brutal early pace, some waiting on a strong mid-race charge, and others just looking for the win. Contrast that to the traditional race where the front runners sit in third and fourth place, drafting and waiting for the kick, and everyone else dutifully strings out behind them according to their PBs.
I’m sure I could come up with some more thoughts on this concept, but I’m supposed to be working! My overall point here is that I don’t like paced races, but I don’t find unpaced races all that compelling, either. An incentivised race is something I think takes the best of both types, and could make for some interesting outcomes, as well as some entertaining racing. Great blog, Pat…cheers!
June 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
Paul-
I agree w/ you entirely. I’ve often maintained that the decline in public interest in T&F coincided w/ the increased emphasis on records & times.
I agree w/ Amby that such an emphasis was what the public wants - or at least wanted. But now that they’ve switched their desire to fast times from great races, they find the chance of satisfying that desire less and less likely, so they tend to lose interest ever faster.
I make the analogy w/ baseball. During the steroid era just (hopefully) past, the emphasis was on home runs and lots of scoring. Now if fans don’t see a 10-9 game they feel cheated. The ability to appreciate a 1-0 pitchers’ duel is virtually nonexistent, and a 5-4 game, even if it’s full of strategic moves like bunts, hit & runs, steals is considered boring by most current-day fans.
There is, sadly, probably no way to turn back the clock to the old days, but I still look forward to championship meets where there’s a huge pack together at the bell with half a dozen men w/ a chance to win rather than a paced record effort w/ only the smallest possibility of achieving its goal.
June 9th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Pat,
I wholeheartedly agree. I’ve been saying the same for years. I think rabbits spoil track and marathon alike, make every race into more of a time trial and record hunt than a true competition, and lead “fans” away from the people running and more on the stopwatch. I was thrilled when Mary W at the NYRR cut rabbits from the NYC Marathon. Also, I think we belittle the great runners we have by saying they are not good enough to handle the pace, they need help from B-level runners to guide them through. The rabbits leaving track make the sport look like so amateurish and contrived. And if our stars want to dally around a slow pace and then just kick home, it will catch up with them: they will lose performance bonuses, some of the best will always get caught napping and realize they have to run differently and maybe won’t be invited back (or get the appearance fees) next time around. This whole thing goes back to TV, and it’s a bit of a nature or nurture argument regarding fan expectation.
June 9th, 2009 at 5:59 pm
Lots of good points, but I don’t think this article addresses the “evil” pacing is intended to address, which are (comparatively) slow jogs for most of a race followed by a kick at the end. Many spectators find this kind of race boring and don’t feel like they are seeing the athletes really exert themselves (which may not necessarily be true, but that’s the perception). Using rabbits is an attempt to force athletes to run harder for the whole race, to put on a better show, and make the spectators feel like they got their money’s worth instead of watching runners punching a time clock and putting in their time at the office. If the result of getting rid of pacing was to create more sit-and-kick races, it would likely further harm the popularity of the sport.
Eric Sontag makes some interesting suggestions, but I would be afraid that spectators would perceive in-race bonuses as gimmicks. Bonuses would be fun every once in a while as a stunt or based on some unique quality of the race (like the Bay to Breakers hill bonus), but its hard to see how it could be a regular rule. For example, I can’t see it working at an amateur (NCAA, etc.) or Olympic level where there isn’t prize money.
June 9th, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Seems to me that paced races are often real races, not simply time trials. Once the rabbit drops off, the race goes on, after all. And having a rabbit will spread the field, minimize congestion, allow more runners to avoid running extra distance by hugging the rail. I watched the Prefontaine meet, where the women’s 1500 and men’s 3000, both rabbited, were real races and full of excitement for the fans. If these races had gone unrabbited, it’s easy to imagine them diminished. Didn’t the Weltklasse meet experiment recently with going rabbitless, and then backtrack? I think a crucial distinction is between good rabbits and not-so-good rabbits. I enjoy seeing a rabbit hit his/her requested splits on the nose before stepping aside to let the racers through.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:58 pm
To me, its ideal if there was no pacing in races, but it can be tough in some cases to prove that someone was actually paced. As far as the fast-time advantages, even if a 14 minute 5k runner paced me, I would not come anywhere close to that time unless I was picked up and dragged along. In other words, you’ve got to be able to do the pace in order to achieve the time.
Also, if one competitor has a pacer, all other competitors in the field can utilize that pacer and key off of their pace if they so choose. Therefore, I say, don’t make it against the rules to use a pacer.
June 9th, 2009 at 9:32 pm
Drop the pacers and let the participants regulate themselves. The idiosyncrasies of the events and diversity of the athletes should be allowed to shine. If someone wants to sit and kick, then someone with Pre’s spirit of running will make him pay and if nobody does then “so be it”. But to regulate it? Watching Pre’s Classic this weekend it did seem a little silly and sophomoric to watch the pace setters hop off the track (I would like to see them at least finish the race, that is a suitable sacrifice), but it also seemed silly that Kiprop’s teammate watched him cheer the last 100m instead of blasting by him. (A personal comment, ie insult about one of the previous posters has been edited out, but the rest of this seems fair comment - Pat)
June 9th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Amby raises good points about what the audience wants. What goes unsaid is why the audience wants what it wants and whether it has changed over the years. Was Bolt’s performance better than Bekele’s or Wanjiru’s? It was much easier for an announcer to cover a 10 second straight-ahead event than the subtle chess game played by the distance stars. Remember the Ryun/Liquori mile duel? Would that get major coverage today? We need announcers who understand the sport and who can excite the audience. Perhaps use a horseracing announcers with their infectious enthusiasm, instead of a major sports announcer who normally cover events that happen in ten second increments. Highlight the subtle surges, the efforts to box in the favorite, a runner patiently relaxing on the rail, or working hard on the outside in order to stay out of trouble, bumping elbows to get out of box or to throw the smooth gliding runner off stride. Post-race articles could do more to dramatize the subtle but effective moves that helped decide the race. A sit-and-kick runner only wins if they are still in contention coming off the last curve.
June 10th, 2009 at 12:32 am
I believe there’s a role for rabbits in our sport. While I agree that rabbits in record attempts shouldn’t be allowed, they’re necessary in non-championship and record attempt races to make the ‘racing’ longer than 200m. There were several good examples of this from last weekend’s Pre meet. Yes, I realize Barringer set a collegiate record. Aside from that the rabbits made the races very interesting throughout.
June 11th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Pat, you have a lot to say, but yes times do matter. A lot of athletes, such as myself, don’t have a chance to win a championship of any kind, so for myself, I just want to run as fast as possible.
June 17th, 2009 at 11:02 pm
I disagree completely! I have seen far too many distance races where the runners practically jog until the last lap or two and then it becomes an all-out sprint to the finish. If I wanted to see people run one fast lap, I’d watch the 400! This overemphasis on winning/placing works to the detriment of solid performance. We’ve all seen races where a runner with a great kick takes the lead in a race and then deliberately slows the pack down in order to set himself up for his winning kick. This is why so many people appreciated Steve Prefontaine’s style of running. He didn’t respect any win that didn’t involve running as fast as you could. When I was running, I didn’t care about winning. I cared about challenging myself to run better and better. What’s the point of winning if you didn’t push yourself the whole way??!!