Sports Illustrated on Oscar Pistorius

Sports Illustrated covers Oscar Pistorius, and the latest on Semenya 

Yesterday I did a post looking at the latest research on Oscar Pistorius, which sensationally claimed that his advantage was about 10 seconds in a 400m race.  Nothing new from me today, but I do want to refer you to a great summary on the development by David Epstein of Sports Illustrated.

I had the pleasure of meeting David while in New York recently, and he covers the science, the politics and the personalities in great detail and logical thought in this article, which is well worth a read.

Of particular note is the following quote from Peter Weyand, referring to the fact that the media had, for the last 12 months, portrayed an extra-ordinarily one-sided perspective on the question of Pistorius' advantage:

"It was tough to watch Oscar on the Today Show after the [CAS] hearing saying, 'Hey, the best guys in the world have looked at this and said I don't have an advantage'," he said. "The history and evolution of it led him to believe he doesn't have an advantage, when our conclusion is he has a very clear one."

So what now?  Will the decision be reviewed?

Well, in my opinion, what Weyand has done is effectively introduce new evidence to the debate.  This was evidence which very clearly existed at the time of the CAS hearing, and should have been presented, regardless of hiding behind the technicality that the CAS didn't ask for it.  It was (and is) very much material and crucial to the case.  But the CAS created very narrow requirements of the scientific support, and that was an error (designed by the legal process and lawyers, I suspect), and Weyand and the team went along with it.

But that does not excuse the fact that evidence existed that could well have changed the outcome of the deliberations.  The facts were either buried on purpose on lost in the process.  Either way, they are out now, and the CAS and IAAF need to reconsider the entire process.  It was, to be frank, a farce, and one which now needs to be revisited.  Either Weyand's latest data should be considered as new evidence, which necessitates a new decision, or it must be recognized that evidence was not disclosed to the CAS, which renders that process a failure (and a farce), and the decision should be reviewed.  The IAAF need to act on this information, not allow it to slide.

Caster Semenya occupies more of their time

Unfortunately for the IAAF, it seems they have their hands full with another SA athlete in Caster Semenya.  We haven't covered this story in months, because frankly, it's not worth pursuing right now.

And despite much hype about announcements and press releases in the last two days, it still is not worth reporting on, because nothing has changed, hype or not.  Initially, the SA Minister of Sport's office issued a statement saying that an agreement had been reached between Semenya, the IAAF and SA Sports Minister, which would allow Semenya to keep the medal, the prize money and the performance, and that any decisions on her future would be made by her.

There was only one problem - the IAAF didn't quite agree with "the agreement".  So in the latest of what has become expected from SA sports governance, there was some nifty back-tracking, and a statement later that the initial comments were 'premature', and that agreement was still being pursued.  A matter of timing, they're saying...

Can Semenya run again?  Don't hold your breath, you won't hear it from anyone official for a long time

So, we are no better off than we were 24 hours ago.  Can Semenya run again in the future?  Nobody knows.  There is little doubt that she will keep the medal, I would be astonished if it was taken away.  We have also learned with certainty that no one will be disclosing the results of the medical tests.   This means we will not know whether the IAAF believe she should run in the future or not.  And for reasons for patient confidentiality, this is the best course of action.

However, given what has gone on for three months, and given that so many questions remain, and will remain for as long as Semenya even harbours a tiny thought of running competitively, there will have to come a time when some kind of announcement is made. 

Confidentiality, while crucial, must be weighed against the simple fact that if the facts are not disclosed, then certain sections of the media will find them.  And if they cannot find the facts, they will make them up.  This will be even more damaging to Semenya, and so at some point, in order to move on, somebody has to make an announcement.  Not necessarily of her intricate details and medical conditions, but at the very least, an assurance of the general course that has been followed.  This is fundamental to Semenya even considering competing in the future.

Short term - Semenya's decision, the IAAF waits

For now, she should be allowed to consider all her medical options, away from the political pressures and performance debates that have surrounded her.  She has a few big decisions to make, and I do not believe that the IAAF will  make any decision until Semenya has decided what medical path she wishes to follow. She has a few options:

She can choose surgery, which would remove the testes. If she does this, then the IAAF are effectively absolved of making the call, because any advantage she has would be removed, and she can run as a woman, without any questions being asked.  This would mean that the IAAF never have to cross that sticky bridge about whether she can compete again. They are no doubt praying very hard that this happens!  To repeat the earlier point, if this happens, she absolutely must make an announcement and at least inform people of it.  If she does not, then she will neither receive the support of meeting organizers, spectators, or fellow athletes.

Her other option is to choose not to have surgery, and then the ball will be in the IAAF's court. And dare I say it, we will see a repeat of the Oscar Pistorius CAS trial (or farce, as it were), where it cannot be proved beyond doubt that there is an advantage. This could become very messy indeed.  It would come down to a judgment call, is there an advantage or not, and can it be proved?  I dare say the answer is no, even if the theory is compelling.  You can easily work out the implications if this happens - does she get invited, how do her competitors react and is it sustainable?  This is the lose-lose scenario, at least as far as athletics goes.

But in terms of awarding a second gold, and a whole new set of medals, the IAAF can't do that, because they'd be showing their hand in terms of an advantage they may believe she has. They have to wait. They have to wait until she decides what she is going to do - if she chooses surgery, they may award the medals quietly, and hope this is forgotten.  If she doesn't, then it will all come to a head again next year.

Regardless, failure to make some kind of announcement, even a compromised statement on what process has been followed, will lead us to gridlock, yet again.  But then, we all knew that yesterday.   And today, we are none the wiser.

Ross

Are marathon times getting faster or not?

A Further Analysis of Marathon Performances

As US fans continue to drink in the first American victory in New York since 1982, we thought we would follow up the race report with a further analysis of marathon times.  If you read the comments to the race report, Joe Garland and cassio598 mentioned that in the early years of the race the course was four laps through Central Park, and that to examine the progression of times we should rather analyze the winning times since 1976.  The graph in question is this one here:

So in 1976 the current race course was adopted, the one that passes through all five boroughs, and since then the average winning time has deviated year-to-year by only about 90 s and has gone below 2:08 only once (in 2001 when Jifar set the current course record).  The blips, for your information, are from 1984 when the ambient temperature was in the upper 70s F with 60-90% humidity, and 1990, when the max temperature on the course was 79 F.

One of the readers, cassio598, suggested analyzing the data from 1976 to the present, because then it appears that the winning time creeps lower over time.  And the verdict?

The regression line for these data does indeed move in a downward direction, however the coefficient of determination ("r-squared") is only 0.16, which does not suggest a very good fit.  But the bigger issue is that since 1981 there have been six times that are very close to 2:08, and so it is hard to conclude that the times are getting faster when almost 30 years ago the winning time was one minute faster than the winning time this year.

The nature of the course:  A peculiar finding

Perhaps the really interesting comparison comes from looking at the the "current" average times of all the big city marathons---London, Boston, Berlin, Chicago, and New York---and see how the times of this decade compare to the "average" times from a decade ago.  So what you see below is the average winning time from 1990-99 (blue column) compared to the average winning time from 2000-09 (red column) for all of the above-mentioned races.

Recall that Chicago, London, and Berlin are flat courses, while NYC and Boston are not flat.  You can see that the winning time for all the flat courses has decreased by about 2.0% while NYC and Boston have remained more or less the same.  How is that?  Even when scrutinizing the Boston data, it comes out that in 1983 the last American to win, Greg Meyer, ran 2:09:00.  It also turns out that the average winning time for the Kenyans (and a Kenyan has won Boston many many times!) is 2:09:32.

One key factor is pace-makers - at least for the last few years, neither Boston nor New York have employed pace-makers, whereas Berlin, London and Chicago have.  Berlin, in particular, has evolved into a staged record attempt every year.  Fast times are designed on these flatter courses, and that is certainly a factor to take into account.  However, it does not explain why the Kenyan dominance, particularly in Boston, has been sustained with slower times than in the 1990s (and, as in the case of Meyer, the early 1980s!)

This all leads me to believe that the less than flat nature of these two courses may "neutralize" the speed of the East Africans.  How this works we have not figured out just yet, but how can it be that while the average best American marathon time is so many minutes slower than the best African times, yet on courses like these we had runners over 20 years ago running just as fast as the Africans are running now?

Conservative race strategy?

Perhaps the hilly nature of Boston and New York dictate a more comfortable (i.e. ~2:09) pace for the first half, as no one wants to blitz the first 20 km in 57 min only to have the wheels come off during any bumps in the second half.

One question we asked ourselves after New York was, "What if Wanjiru ran New York. . .?"  Because if he ran aggressively like he ran Beijing, London and Chicago, at halfway he might have had only two runners with him and not seventeen others as was the case in New York.  With all due respect to Meb, if the 21.1 km split was 1:03:00 and not 1:05:11, he and most of that pack would likely not have been there to contest the race around Manhattan.  Having said that, however, it will be really interesting to see how Meb goes next year, because he did set a half marathon PB this year with a 61:00 back in April.

The fastest of the fast:  Berlin

One thing that also comes out of the graph above is that Berlin has been the fastest course around for years.  We all know why the average time since 2000 is about 2:06:20, but even in the 1990s Berlin was almost one minute faster than London and Chicago.  Seeing as how the margins are so tight now, it seems that Berlin is perhaps the course most likely to produce the next marathon world record.  Previously, when the record was "softer" and still above 2:05, the turns, bumps and cobbles of courses like London were not really obstacles.  Now, however, the record is so close to the limits of the current crop of potentials that even having to take several extra 90 degree turns will be meaningful.

Dubai may become the new player on the record scene, and along with Berlin, has become one of Gebrselassie's two paced record attempts each year (as it will be in 2010).  So it may have the fastest time of all, but being such a recent race, and really only by virtue of the fact that Geb has chosen it, it hasn't proven itself over decades, yet.

The answer to the title of this post:  YES!

If we looked only at New York and Boston we might conclude that, no, times are not getting faster, because in those two races there seems to be a real limit in the form of the race course.  While a 2:07 in either of those races will almost guarantee you a win and probably the course record too, a 2:07 in London is only good enough to squeeze into the top five and probably a podium in Chicago, but no guarantees you will be victorious.  But obviously the times are getting faster, because we have seen a progression of world records in 5000 and 10000 all the way up to 42.2 km, and no one would argue with that.

What we have stated before is that the marathon class of 2009 has been particularly fast, and that actually warrants an analysis on its own---between Kibet's and Kwambai's 2:04:27 in Rotterdam, Wanjiru's 2:05:10 in London, Gebrselassie's 2:06:13 in Berlin, Wanjiru's 2:05:41 in Chicago, and even Vincent Kipruto's 2:05:47 in Paris, the average winning time this year is 2:05:28, which might be the fastest average for one year!

Jonathan

NYC Marathon 2009 race report

A day of upsets!

By now you would have heard the news and probably read much about it---in both races in New York the runners did not play to the script and there were big upsets all around. For some fans change might be hard, but we welcome it as it means there was unpredictable events and it made for exciting viewing in each race!

Lining up it seemed a forgone conclusion that Paula Radcliffe would run most everyone off her heels by halfway and then finish off any hangers on in the last 10 km. On the men's side seasoned vets like Gharib and Cheruiyot were pegged to take the win with Ryan Hall posting another good result after Martin Lel pulled out at the 11th hour. So those were the scripts, as they were, but what we saw was something entirely different.

The women - No one got the memo

It was a "normal" start to the women's race with Paula setting the pace, although it was not particularly fast. The early fireworks were not from hard running but from a fall from Salina Kosgei in the fourth mile. She went down, apparently tripping on her own feet, but the real casualty was Yuri Kano who hit the deck hard. Kosgei fought back and hung on to finish a respectable 5th, while Kano was probably more impressive with her 9th place after what looked like a very hard fall.

For much of the race Paula had a bit of an entourage in Kosgei, Tulu, Ludmila Petrova, and the French woman Christelle Daunay who was fresh of a three-minute PB in the Paris marathon earlier this year. Not surprisingly Kosgei was the first to go, but what was surprising was that Paula Radcliffe was the next. All it took was one surge by the the aging Petrova and Radcliffe was gapped, never to reel in the other three. Daunay was next as Petrova pushed the pace and tried to drop what surely would be a faster finishing Tulu.

Once Radcliffe was gone the writing was on the wall and some predictability returned. It would be Tulu sitting in and waiting for the final stretch before out-kicking Petrova easily and winning by eight seconds in 2:28:52.

The end of an era?

Already the questions are flying about whether or not Radcliffe is now over the hill, in marathon terms that is. It is hard to say based off just this one race, but one has to consider the string of injuries she has faced since 2004 pre-Athens. To be sure, training for and racing marathons places undue amounts of stress on your body, and it is the exception when we see an athlete have real competitive longevity---for example Gebrselassie. Instead the inevitable is that their bodies start to break down in the form of constant injuries that keep them just off their best efforts. They start and they finish, but it looks very much like Paula (and Ramaala) did in New York---they hang with the lead pack, probably cover the early moves, but when things really heat up they are straight out the back, but still finish well in the top ten.

There are reports that she will have another baby next year, and if that is the case it will likely give her sufficient time off from hard racing and training to mend some of the wear and tear. So the jury is still out, but the times of Paula running off the front and obliterating the field might well be past us.

The men - A new cast of US runners

Before his exit in the days before the race, Martin Lel was the hot favorite in the race. We have pegged him as one of the best racers and when healthy he is a lock to win it. In the absence of Lel Boston King Cheriyot was the heir apparent, although he has been plagued with injuries of alte and remained untested, which meant the smart money should maybe have been on Kwambai---don't forget he holds one of the fastest times ever when he and Kibet dueled to a photo-finish Rotterdam earlier this year. So like in the women's race, this was the script, although they also deviated from it wildly!

The early antics were provided by Bouramdane, who attacked and surged numerous times throughout the race. Nothing ever stuck, though, and he was always brought back into the fold. Perhaps it was the relatively slow pace that made him impatient? For the first half they were never below 2:10 pace, which explained the massive group of 18 men that stayed together through halfway.

In New York First Avenue normally signals the start of the fireworks, and for this part they played to script---suddenly the pace went from about 5:00 per mile to 4:42 for mile 17 and 4:39 for mile 18. It was race on as rookie Jackson Kipkoech pushed the pace as the pack of Keflezighi, Cheruiyot, Kipkoech, Gharib, Kwambai, and Bouramdane were all together. Gharib was the first to get popped, although he clawed back to finish third, and by mile 22 it was Meb vs. Cheruiyot.

Summoning strength from his fallen friend Ryan Shay, Meb turned on the jets with just over two miles to go, surging and getting a meaningful gap on the Kenyan. Cheruiyot looked undone at that point and not able to fight back to even with Meb, and so it was that Meb opened up a 41 s margin over those remaining miles, giving him enough of a lead to savour the victory and be the only one in the photo crossing the line in first.

The return of Meb? Or a shot in the dark?

No one would have bet on Meb winning in New York, especially with all the pre-race hype in the USA on the steady and great form Ryan Hall has been showing this year. But by and by Meb was on the road back from a disastrous 2008 in which he failed to finish the US Olympic trials, and let us not forget that he took silver in Athens. Interestingly, NYC was his first marathon win and also his PB, which was way off the course record by the way.

As excited as I was by the racing and also as happy as I am for Meb to win this race, I am not convinced we are going to see him on the podium in the marathon majors next year. The problem is that NYC is unique among the big city marathons---London, Berlin, Chicago, and even Boston are fast courses that tend to be won by the "fastest" runners. By this I mean those with the fastest 10 km times, the fastest 21.1 km times, and the fastest previous marathon times. In other words, the Wanjirus/Tergats/Gebrselassies/Khannouchis of the world. If he stays healthy I fully expect Meb to be with the leaders until 30+ km in any of those races, providing Sammy Wanjiru is not setting a suicidal pace like he did in both London and Chicago this year. But once it heats up he will fade and finish in the top ten somewhere because he does not even have the speed of Ryan Hall in the marathon and shorter distances.

What is special about New York

The funny thing about New York is that the winning time has changed little since 1974 when Norbet Sander (who?) set the then course record of 2:10:09:
It is likely a function of the course---turns and a little less than flat profile with all the bridges, and perhaps partly due to the race's position on the calendar, very late in the season. But it is hard to explain how it is that the world record has fallen substantially over the past 30 years, as has the winning time at all the other city marathons, yet in New York 2:08 seems to be the limit.

Technology does us in

That is our take on the race as I saw it, as unfortunately Ross was not able to access the live feed with any consistency. In addition the race website has an "interesting" choice of splits as they do not capture 5 km splits but mix those with odd strings of mile splits like 14-15 and 19-21. It was hard coming off our very successful reporting of one km splits in Chicago, but even the race coverage did not reliably report mile splits for either race today. So pardon the absence of the normal pacing analysis, but in this case the real story was not how it the race was run but rather that going into the race we all would have selected a certain finishing order, only to be totally wrong on the day!

There is more to say and ask about US distance running, too, as not since 1976 have so many Americans (SIX) finished in the top ten. Is this a resurgence? The fruit of several years of devoted efforts and incentives? A stacked field compared to other races? A lack of Kenyan entrants/finishers (two)?

Jonathan

New York 2009: Race analysis and splits

New York 2009: Splits and race analysis

If you've come here for live splits, I'm afraid I have been beaten by technology this time around. Between the feed from Universal Sports breaking up on me every 2 seconds, and the hotel wireless access in Boston, I did not manage to even watch the race, let alone document the splits. Even now, 8 hours later, I can't watch the race for long enough to even comment sensibility on what went down.

I have seen the race reports, and I would have loved to comment on what were two huge upsets - Meb Keflezighi and Deratu Tulu would have been long-odds leading into the race, but they came out on top in what must rank as the biggest surprises of the year's Marathon Majors, by a long way.

I'm off to New York tomorrow, where I'll try again to watch the race, and then maybe, I'll even feel compelled to comment. I'll try to get some split times up if I can (better late than never). But for now, I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to follow the race, and apologize for not delivering on our usual race analysis - this is, I noticed, the first marathon I've missed since London 2007.

So huge apologies, I will try my best to get a post on the race done at some point!

Ross