Women's decathlon: Jordan Gray breaks the 8K berrier

The 2021 Women's Decathlon Association Championship was held over the week-end of August 21-22 in San Mateo. J. Gray was once more the star of the competition. Unfortunately the participation was not at the 2019 level: just six competitors took the start (but all of them did manage to finish). 

Things were not easy since the wind was particularly strong and it was decided that the athletes would run the 100 m in the opposite direction so as to have a tailwind. And a tailwind did they have, a 4.6 m/s one. And, given the direction of the long jump run-up, the tailwind did contribute to the performance of the athletes. J. Gray benefited from a 2 m/s wind in her best, 6.12 m, jump. Now the rules stipulate that for combined events,

in events where wind velocity is measured, the average velocity (based on the algebraic sum of the wind velocities, as measured for each individual event, divided by the number of such events) shall not exceed plus 2 metres per second.

(Previously there was a wind-speed limit of 4 m/s per event, something totally absurd, as I point out in my article on Wind Effects. Fortunately the old (1969) proposal of the federation of New Zealand was accepted and the current wind-speed limit is 2 m/s albeit obtained as an average over the three events where wind velocity is measured). 

So, for Gray the mean wind velocity, up to that point, was above the allowed maximum. It was that essential that in the 100 m hurdles the headwind compensate that. Fortunately for her the event was run in a 2.5 m/s headwind bringing thus the mean wind velocity below 1.4 m/s and thus her record could be homologated. (Corinn Brewer aiming at the high school record was less lucky. He had a tailwind of 2.3 m/s in her long jump and just 0.5 m/s of headwind in her 100 m hurdles pushing the mean wind velocity just over the allowed limit. So, although her final score was better than the previous record it could not be homologated).

Jordan Gray made an impressive appearance in the pole vault, improving her personal best twice, ending at 3.91 m (and barely missing at the 4.01 m height).  

In the end she scored 8246 points (a new US record), just 112 points shy of A. Skujyte's world record (and 96 points more than M. Collonvillé's inaugural world record of 8150 points). Her performances were: 11.86-6.12-14.25-1.71-57.27-14.43-39.84-3.91-41.14-5:28.27.

Can she do better than this and break the world record? First, let us deal with the wind effect. Compared to her personal bests the tailwind gave her a 57 (979-922) point advantage in the 100 m, but the headwind in the 100 m hurdles made her lose 89 (918-1007) points. She could probably win a few points in non-windy conditions. Second, her progress in the pole vault is the proof that she is gradually assimilating the technique. If she can master, say, a 4.15 m height she can win an extra 100 points. An extra metre in the discus or the javelin could bring 20 additional points and a world record at the end of the day. 

Over the same week-end an ultra-combined event competition was held in France. It was a competition of eicosathlon, which was also open to women. L. Kuntz, who had participated in the 2019 decathlon was present in Epinal and completed the extenuating competition obtaining 10941 points, missing the world record (11090, K. Rodmell, 2004) by 150 points. Had she had only slightly better throws she would have shattered the existing record. Be that as it may, her decathlon points, 5418, registered during the eicosathlon, do surpass her previous, 2019, personal best of 5293 points. But, as far as I am concerned, women should concentrate on the decathlon and ignore the more "exotic" combined events which do not stand a chance of joining the major championships' program one day.

How the US Trials are noxious for the US athletics

The US Athletics team obtained just five individual gold medals in Tokyo, four for women and just one for men. After the fantastic performances at the US Trials one month earlier, one would expect something better from the US team. Or should one? In fact I am convinced that the reason the US athletes do not excel at the major championships are precisely the Trials. The competition there is so fierce that everybody (well, almost) has to be at the best shape possible in order to obtain a place in the team. And maintaining this shape for over a month after the Trials is nigh impossible. So, either you are practically certain to make the team in which case you can afford a short tapering in your preparation in order to make the team and then fine-tune your training in view of the main rendezvous. Or you have to fight tooth and nail for a place in the team, in which case the Trials are the important meeting and if you are qualified you can then try to salvage your preparation for the big meeting.

The US 2020 individual gold medallists

The US Trials is an old and venerable institution. The athletic teams were nominated through national trials already for the 1920 Olympics, for men, and for the 1928 Olympics for women. And, even previously, the 1908 and 1912 teams were selected based on regional trials. There is no selection committee (well, not quite: the substitute relay runners, the ones who complement the first four, are selected by a committee). It's a do or die event: if you finish among the first three you are in the team, provided you have realised the minimum required performance (the minimum being set by World Athletics). This, rather brutal system, has already cost the US team more than one gold medal. In 1992, Dan O'Brien, already World Champion in the decathlon, no-heighted in the pole vault. He did not make the team and in Barcelona the decathlon gold medal was won by R. Zmelik. O'Brien broke the world record two months later, went on to win the 1993 and 1995 World's and  got redemption by winning the 1996 Olympic decathlon in Atlanta. (I could go on and on with examples, but you get the gist).

So the question is how could one devise a qualifying system better than the one of the US. The first idea that comes to mind is to have a selection committee which nominates the members of the team. This is probably the worst solution since it would invariably lead to never-ending disputes. A better solution would be to have a point classification system, similar to the World Ranking of World Athletics but tailored to the US reality, and select the team on that basis. Although objective, such a system would be rather rigid and would certainly spark off critiques, in particular on the criteria used for the ranking. A better system would be to nominate the national champion (provided he has realised the minima) and complement the team through a committee selection. The UK selection is close to this and in fact probably better. The first two of the championship are nominated in the team but the athlete for third place is selected. This allows some flexibility and would ensure that the best athlete is not left out of the team because of a passing weakness.

Unfortunately more and more national federations are copying the US system. I already wrote about 2016 olympic champion O. McLeod being left out of the team (but, to be fair, his absence did not hurt the jamaican team, since they won gold and bronze in Tokyo). T. Cheruiyot was initially out of the team and could be qualified only because the 18-year-old K. Etyang, who had finished second in the trials, was ineligible for the Olympics, not having had three out-of-competition doping tests. His participation was most fortunate since he gave the opportunity to J. Ingebrigtsen to win by beating the runner considered up to that moment as the best miler in the world.

The utter stupidity of the World Athletics hyperandrogenism rules

I know, I should have written DSD, which stands for Differences in Sexual Development, but as I would never call a disabled person "differently abled" I prefer the use of an explicit term rather than some obscure acronym. Be that as it may, since DSD is the official term now I will, reluctantly, use it in what follows. 

Everything started with the appearance of a young and gifted 800 runner from South Africa: Caster Semenya. Her rise was meteoric. She went from 2:04.23 in 2008 to 1:55.45 in 2009 winning the world title in Berlin. But the problem was that Semenya was looking like a man and had a man's voice and gestures. Now, let us be fair: Semenya is not a man anatomically (for those who cannot parse this sentence, this means that she does not have a penis) and so she could be considered as a woman. It's been quite some time that sex verification is not mandatory for the participation in women's category. But the World Athletics has a discretionary power of investigation and, while they found that Semenya had indeed an elevated level of testosterone (word has it that Semenya has internal testes), they allowed her to participate in competitions. And Semenya accumulated two Olympic victories, three World champion titles, to say nothing of Continental, Commonwealth titles as well as a load of Diamond League victories. The outcry was such that World Athletics had to do something. They started by introducing a regulation which stipulated that, in order to be able to participate in women's events all participants had to comply with the upper limit of testosterone concentration of 10 nmol/L. Semenya could not do otherwise and after a female hormone treatment which brought down her testosterone to acceptable levels, her best performance in 2014 was 2:02.66. Alas the rule was challenged by the indian sprinter D. Chand at the at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) which abolished the rule and ordered World Athletics to produce scientific evidence in support of a future hyperandrogenism regulation. 

I give all the details of the hyperandrogenism saga in my article on DSD. And a year later I wrote an article entitled "Is this the end of the Semenya scandal?" hoping that the hyperandrogenism plague would stop there. However towards the end of the article I pointed out that, given that the rule was over cautious, applicable only to middle distances, from 400 m to the mile, hyperandrogenic athletes would soon adapt themselves. I was even prophesying that while Semenya, being rather heavily built, would be unable to move to the 5000 m (in fact, she did try but could not make the minima) a lighter athlete like Niyonsaba could easily adapt herself to the longer distances. And she did! She presented herself to the 5000 m race in Tokyo where she was disqualified in the heats (for stepping out of the track) and then she participated in the 10000 m. She finished 5th despite being rather inexperienced in that distance. Unless the DSD are extended to apply to longer distances do not be surprised if she is a medal contender at the next Olympics: she will be just 31 in 2024. 

With her new hair-style Niyonsaba 

is looking even less feminine

But wait, things are getting worse.

Last December I saw a video of a young, 17 years old, namibian athlete, Beatrice Masilingi, who ran the 400 m in an impressive 50.42 s. And a few days later a second 17-years old, Christine Mboma, ran the 400 m in 51.57 s. Those were impressive results. But they became more so when on the road to the Olympics Masilingi ran in 49.53 and Mboma first 49.22 followed by 48.54 s, a world leading performance. And then the shocking news arrived. Both Mboma and Masilingi are hyperandrogenic and could not participate in the 400 m in Tokyo. But a good 400 m runner is usually good in 200 m too. And so the two namibians entered the 200, reached the final with Masilingi finishing 6th with 22.28 and Mboma clinching the silver medal in an out-of-this-world finish and an incredible 21.81 s. 

So now World Athletics has the proof that a testosterone excess can lead to extraordinary performances in distances outside the 400-1500 range. And given that in their initial study they remarked a tendency towards hyperandrogenism in pole vault and hammer throw, one can easily conclude that with a careful selection we may have hyperandrogenic women dominating all events. This is not how Lord Sebastian sees the situation. He claims that "Mboma’s Tokyo 200m silver shows testosterone rules are working". Could anyone explain this to me? I think that he could not admit publicly that the rules were not working and he opted for a politicians answer. In fact, when asked whether Mboma could break the world record, he replied that he thought it was possible and added that "this probably would then give the governing body more questions to contend with where the rules are concerned".

Well, if you ask me where the rules should be applied, the answer is simple: they should apply to all athletics. No exception. Hyperandrogenic women should follow a hormone treatment and bring their testosterone blood concentration below 5 nmol/L. And even so, they would have an advantage having profited from the anabolic, muscle-building, effect of testosterone during all their life. But extending the rules so that they cover, say, the 200 m would be a most counterproductive decision. In fact, it would offer a perfect argument to Semenya's fans, who will claim (quite understandably) that the previous rules were targeted at Semenya.

I cannot resist at this point to mention the unfair treatment of Kabange Mupopo, a zambian  400 m runner. She was African champion in 2016, with 50.87. She reached the semis in the 2015 Worlds and the 2016 Olympics and ran in the final in the 2017 World's finishing 7th. And then it was announced that Mupopo was sanctioned for doping, the test having detected an excess of testosterone. She was banned for four years (roughly till the end of 2021) and has lost both the 2019 World's and the 2021 Olympics. Now, when Mupopo appeared on the international circuit her boyish looks made people wonder whether she was another hyperandrogenic case. And, in fact, the argument of the Zambian federation was that Mupopo was a DSD case which would explain the elevated testosterone concentration. The president of the Zambia federation in an interview pointed out that “from the medical results that we got from University Teaching Hospital, it was as a result of hormone imbalance”. Mupopo's coach believes that she was unfairly treated because "she never took any foreign substances but was banned based on what already existed in her body". The Athletics Integrity Unit rejected the claims. Zambia does not carry the same weight as South Africa and so their claims could be brushed away. Moreover that was in 2017 when World Athletics was still under the delusion that Semenya's was an isolated case. By now they have awakened (at least I hope so) to the realisation that we should prepare for a deluge of hyperandrogenic women who will wreak havoc on women's athletics.

(And do not get me started on transgender athletes).

The fabulous 400 m hurdles

Having just watched the women's 400 m hurdles final I could not resist the temptation to write a short post. I believe that both 400 m hurdles have been the highest level races I have ever watched. 

Just think about this. The winner breaks the world record. The second athlete runs also under the previous world record. And the third runs under what was the world record at the beginning of the year. (To say nothing of a slew of personal bests).

Two years ago I wrote an article on "The three musketeers of the 400 m hurdles", the three being A. Samba (who had just dipped under 47 seconds), K. McMaster and K. Warholm. And as tradition has it, there was a fourth musketeer, the young antiguan R. Benjamin, who had just clocked an astonishing 47.02. Two years later the four are still there. Samba has been plagued by injuries and has still to return to top shape. Benjamin acquired the US citizenship (something I have trouble understanding, since he is now obliged to pass the risky test of the US Trials in order to be selected to the national team). And, along the road to Tokyo, a fifth musketeer made its appearance, brazilian A. Dos Santos. All five of them were present in the Tokyo final. And what a final.

Warholm added the olympic crown to his world titles, with a world record of 45.94 s. Benjamin was second with 46.17 s (the world record of Warholm coming to Tokyo was 46.70 s). As he said after the race "if somebody would have told me that I would run 46.17 and still be second, I would think he was joking". Dos Santos was third with 46.72 s (inside what was the world record at the beginning of the year, 46.78 s by K. Young). McMaster was fourth with 47.08 s, a personal best, while Samba finished fifth with 47.12 s, slightly behind his best performances but still an excellent time. There has never been such a density in the 400 m hurdles.

And then came the women's race. D. Muhammad has been racing at the highest level for quite a few years, winning silver in the 2013 and 2017 World's. In 2016 she reached the summit of her discipline winning gold in the Rio Olympics. The world record came three years later, first in the US Trials with 52.20 s and then in the 2019, Doha, championships with 52.16 s, where she was pushed all the way by S. McLaughlin. Muhammad added the world title to her olympic one, but it was clear that McLaughlin was the rising star. McLaughlin had surprised everybody making the US team for the Rio Olympics at just 16 years of age (she ran up to semi-final). She was second behind Muhammad in the 2019, Doha, World's with 52.23 s. (It is interesting to note that both Muhammad and McLaughlin were members of the US 4x400 m team, winning gold in Doha). The one-year delay of the Olympics was most profitable to McLaughlin who spent the winter improving her basic speed (she has now a 12.65 s personal best over the 100 m hurdles). In the US Trials she surprised everybody by breaking the world record with 51.90, while she did not have to run so hard in order to secure her qualification to the team. And then a young athlete burst upon the international hurdles scene, F. Bol from Holland. She had participated in the 2019 World's, at just 19 years of age, making it to the semis with 55.32 s. In 2020 she improved her time with 53.79 s and it was clear that she had to be reckoned with in the future. That did not take long and in 2021, after an indoor season where she focused on the "flat" 400 m, winning all her races, she returned to the hurdles and barely missed the European record, with 52.37 s registering the fourth best time ever. 

The final was of those races that one watches without even daring to take a breath. Muhammad took off at a pace that would have been suicidal for any other athlete. McLaughlin and Bol were just behind her till the last hurdle but McLaughlin prevailed in the final sprint. The verdict: Mc. Laughlin 51.46 and Muhammad 51.58 s, both under the previous world record by a good half-second. And while Bol could not match the first two,  she exploded the European record with 52.03 (under Muhammad's world record of 52.16 s at the beginning of the year). 

And for the fans of trivial pursuit: McLaughlin's was the 1000th gold medal awarded in Athletics, since the beginning of the Games.

Stop the presses: Tentoglou is olympic champion

Normally I write a report on the Games only once they are over and I have digested everything that happened. However in this case I will make an exception and give in to the enthusiasm of the moment.

The long jump olympic final was held, for us Europeans, in the middle of the night. It was one of the most nerve-wracking events. Miltos Tentoglou was qualified with 8.22 m, second behind the world indoor champion J.M. Echevarría who jumped 8.50 in the qualifiers. 

Tentoglou is the reigning European champion (indoors and outdoors) and he had jumped 8.60 m this year. Naturally he was one of the favourites for a medal. However the competition was going to be fierce. J.M. Echevarría has a 8.68 m record (and a wind-assisted 8.92 m). T. Gayle, the 2019 World champion, has a 8.69 m record (but he had sustained a knee injury during the qualification). And then there were the two 22 year old jumpers (one year younger than Tentoglou) Harrison with a 8.47 m personal best and M. Massó with 8.37 m.

The first jump was so-so both for Tentoglou and Echevarría, 8.11 and 8.09 m, and it was the other cuban, Massó who took the lead with 8.21 m. However he was injured in his second jump and did not jump any more. In the third jump Echevarría managed an excellent 8.41 m and moved to the first place. The two Cubans were going to lead all the way till the last jump. 

On the fifth jump Harrison jumped to 8.15 m, becoming temporarily third, and Cáceres jumped a season best 8.12 m pushing Tentoglou to fifth place. Miltos immediately responded also with 8.15 m moving back to third (due to a better second jump). 

And so we arrive at the fateful last jump. Cáceres jumping at fifth position obtained 8.18 m, pushing Tentoglou out of the medals. Harrison jumped next but could not improve and was definitely fifth. (Not so bad after all for his first Olympics, where he doubled high and long jump finishing 7th and 5th respectively). For Tentoglou that was the crucial moment. 

As he said later: "Up to that point I was stressed and could not make a decent jump. My five first attempts were awful. But for my last jump I ran relaxed and managed to do one of those jumps I am accustomed to". The verdict was 8.41 m and first place thanks to a better second jump. Massó was out but Echevarría had one jump left. That ended in tears since he finished his run-up limping, unable to jump due to a hamstring injury. Tentoglou was Olympic champion.

Later Echevarría said to the press: "The silver is not what I expected but still, it’s a very welcome prize". Massó was happier: "It was incredible. It was totally a surprise. I was surprised because I was expecting my mark to be surpassed and it didn't, so I was very happy".

As for Tentoglou, who is always very modest in his attitude, speaking to the greek television, declared: "I did not expect this, and in particular to win in this way. I was lucky". And he went on asking the greek journalist if he knew when would the medal award ceremony be held. 

Women marathoners (part 4 of "the long and arduous road of women to the Olympics")

There is one event that is inextricably connected to the modern Olympic Games: the marathon race. When the first modern Olympics were scheduled for Athens, a friend of de Coubertin, Michel Bréal, a well-known french classical scholar, suggested a race recreating the epic race of Pheidippides who ranfrom Marathon to Athens in order to announce the victory over the Persians. 

Everybody knows the name of Spyridon Louis, the winner of that first official marathon. (There has been a qualifying race among the greek participants three weeks before the official event). What is less known is that a greek woman tried to participate in the official race, was rebuffed and, still, did run the marathon.

Stamata Revithi was 30 years old at the time of the Athens Olympics. She was a widow with a very young child and completely destitute. She got the idea of participating in the marathon when she met some runner training on the road from Piraeus to Athens. She was a good long distance runner and she believed that she could beat many men. She presented herself at the eve of the event at the village of Marathon, where she was offered hospitality by the mayor. Things got ugly the next day, when she was refused participation by the race committee. The official justification was that the deadline for participation had expired. But is was clear that the real problem was her gender. The organisers tried to appease her promising her that she would participate in a women's only race, since several american ladies had expressed their interest for running the marathon. So, Revithi did not take the start of the official race. But on the next day she decided to run the marathon on her own. She started after having asked the mayor of the village to witness the time. When she arrived in Athens, some 5 and a half hours later, she asked some officers to sign her hand-written report to certify her time of arrival. She has supposedly commented that she could have done much better if she hadn't stopped along the way in order to look at some ships. Nothing is known about her after that date. As Tarasouleas is writing in his article "Stamata Revithi was lost in the dust of history". Still she was the first female marathoner and the whole story makes her something of a legend.

One can find many references about "two women running the marathon in 1896". While one of them is Revithi, one also encounters the name of Melpomene. It appears in supplements of the Messager d'Athènes, a newspaper in french published in Athens at that time. K. Lennartz, the famous olympic historian, quotes the text of the Messager, where one can read that a woman had run the marathon two weeks before the official race, as a test run, completing the distance in 4 and half hours. According to the Messager, she was "a woman of the people with marked features, of a tough and lively temperament". The description coincides with what is known of Stamata Revithi. So, to my eyes, the situation is clear. Revithi first did a test run and then, once her participation was refused, she did run the marathon one more time, not caring much about her performance, given that there was no competition whatsoever. As to the name of Melpomene, I believed that it was invented simply because it sounds much more greek (to foreigners' ears) than that of Stamata.

The feat of Stamata Revithi was not imitated in the years that followed. As I explained in the previous posts of the series, women were not really welcome in sports and even less so in athletics. But things started to change under the drive of A. Milliat. Although in MIlliat's organisations women did not run over distances longer than 1000 m, female distance runners started making their appearance. Thus it is reported that in 1918 Marie-Louise Ledru participated in the Paris Marathon and completed the race in 5 hours and 40 minutes. This has to be considered as the founding record for women's marathon, as it was obtained over the 42195 m distance, which became official at the 1908, London, Olympics. (The initial Marathon-Athens distance was of 40 km). In 1926, Violet Piercy improved greatly this time by running the marathon from Windsor to Battersea in 3 hours 40 minutes and 22 seconds. As P. Radford points out in his article, V. Piercy was a great publicist of women’s endurance running and she ran many events over the next 10 years “to prove that a woman’s stamina can be just as remarkable as a man’s”.

Piercy's time stood as unofficial world record for 37 years. The reason for this huge gap in time, was due to the fact that there were no women's competitions. Still, J. Hansen, in her great article on Women's Marathon Movement, mentions the “mystery woman in red" from Canada" who managed to participate in the 1951 of the Boston Marathon. Maybe so. But the real revolution in women's long-distance running starts in the 60s. 

Dale Creig in action

In 1963 Mary Lepper, participating in the Western Hemisphere Marathon in Culver City, improved the unofficial world record, with 3:37:07. The same year Dale Creig participated in the Isle of Wight marathon and finished it in 3:27:45. (The funny thing is that the organisers had her followed, during the entire race, by an ambulance). Creig's record, hailed as the first world marathon mark for women, was short lived. Just two months later Millie Sampson completed the Owairaka Marathon, in New Zealand, in a time of 3:19:33.

Bobby Gibb at the arrival of the Boston Marathon

But the decisive step was when women started "infiltrating" the men's-only club of the famous Boston race. In 1966 Roberta Gibb, not allowed to participate officially, hid behind a bush, sneaked into the field and finished the race in 3:21:25. She repeated this in 1967 and 1968, the officials preventing her physically from crossing the finish line. (She had her revenge in 1996, when she was officially recognised as winner of the women's race and was awarded the corresponding medals). But the 1967 edition of the Boston Marathon was marked by a funny incident which, to tell the truth, eclipsed Gibb's performance. 

The Switzer incident

Kathrine Switzer entered the race officially as K.V Switzer and having her (male) coach present her health certificate and pick up the number. A few kilometres into the race the officials realised that Switzer was a woman and tried to remove her from the race. Her teammates fended them off and Switzer could finish the race (in 4 hours and 20 minutes). (Switzer did improve her performances over time, winning the New York Marathon in 1974 and registering a personal best of 2:51.37 in Boston the next year). The publicity surrounding the Switzer incident helped make the quest for equality in road racing a political issue. It was clear at that point that the rules had to change, and change they did. Slowly as always, when it comes to women's rights.

The child prodigy, Maureen Wilton

A few days after the Boston Marathon Switzer was expelled from the AAU (Amateur Athletics Union). Several reasons were offered: she had run beyond the allowable distance for women; she ran with men; she fraudulently entered an AAU race; and she ran without a chaperone(!). The organisers of the Eastern Canadian Marathon in Toronto, being (much) more open minded than the Boston ones, invited K. Switzer to participate in this race. She was not the only female participant. Maureen Wilton, just 13 years 5 months old, also took the start but did not keep company to Switzer for long. She flew through the race finishing in a world record of 3:15:22. Even this record was to prove short-lived. A few months later Anni Pede-Erdkamp ran a marathon in Germany in 3:07.26.  The record survived till 1970 when Caroline Walker, just 16 years old, completed the Trail's End Marathon in 3:02:53. Elizabeth Bonner improved this time the following year with 3:01:42, and then Sara Berman with 3:00:35.  The 3 hours barrier was finally smashed by Adrienne Beames in Australia with 2:46:36. (It was a close thing because just a month later Nina Kuscsik and Elizabeth Bonner ran the New York City Marathon in 2:56:04 and 2:55:22).

Kuscsik and Bonner in the NY Marathon

In 1972, women were allowed to compete officially in the Boston Marathon for the first time. As running became a more popular sport during the 70s, more women began competing in marathons. In 1973 the first all women's marathon was held in Waldniel, West Germany. Still, Olympic organisers were giving no serious consideration to creating a women's marathon. The first official reason was that according to some "experts" the women's health would be damaged by long-distance running (pure poppycock). The second was that to be included in the Games, a women's sport must be widely practiced in at least twenty-five countries on at least two continents. Women's marathoning, the Olympic organisers argued, was simply not popular enough to include. The enthusiasm around the women's marathon was such that soon the latter argument was disproved. But the uphill battle was far from over.

Up to 1980 the longer distance the women were allowed to run in the Olympics was 1500 m! The plan for 1984 was to include the 3000 m. The idea was to proceed gradually, adding first the 5000 and the 10000 m and only then the marathon. The president of the IAAF at the time, A. Paulen, was advocating the gradual approach, fearing that pushing for the marathon might weaken the case for the 3000 m. However after following the Tokyo International Marathon in 1979 he was won over to the cause of women's marathon and soon after this the IAAF recommended its inclusion in the 1984 Olympics. (A women's marathon was included in the program of the first Athletics World Championships in 1983). The IOC tried to stall once more, resurrecting the old arguments of "long-distance running may harm women's health" and claiming that as the program was already too big no new events should be added. And as is customary for the IOC, the decision on the women's marathon was deferred, this time to the 1981 meeting of the Executive Board of the IOC. Fortunately, following an intense lobbying by K. Switzer, who, having retired from competitive running, was by that time the director of Women Sports Foundation, the decision was overwhelmingly in favour of the women's marathon. All that remained was the confirmation by the General Assembly of the IOC. Which turned out to be a pure formality. At long last the road for the women's olympic marathon was clear.

PS The 1981 IOC meeting was one of the most important ones for international sports. It marked the end of the amateurism era and of the hypocritical attitude that had plagued sports for almost a century. From that date onwards the international federations were allowed to set their own requirements for olympic eligibility. The presence and speech of Sebastian Coe was instrumental into convincing the IOC members. (And that was probably the beginning of the career of Sir Sebastian). Following the decision of the IOC, the athletes could receive prize and endorsement money and still be eligible for the Olympics. And the icing of the cake of the 1981 assembly was that, for the first time in the history of the IOC, women were elected as members. From that time onwards the road for women was going to be a little less arduous.