A World Record In Race Walking Is Erased After the Course Was Measured Wrong (npr.org) 59
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: Peru's Kimberly Garcia set a world record in her gold-medal winning turn at the women's 20 kilometer race walk event at the Pan American Games this weekend. Until she didn't. Once the race was over, organizers determined there was a serious "measuring problem" with the track, making the race times of Garcia, fellow medal winners Glenda Morejon of Ecuador and Peru's Evelyn Inga, and their competitors null and void. The athletes guessed the track had been drawn up roughly 3 kilometers (about 1.9 miles) shorter than it was supposed to be. Garcia crossed the finish line in 1 hour, 12 minutes and 26 seconds. The world record of 1 hour, 23 minutes and 49 seconds is held by China's Jiayu Yang. The athletes suspected something was amiss mid-race, according to the Associated Press.
The Santiago 2023 Corporation, the group in charge of the 2023 Pan American Games, placed the blame on the Pan American Athletics Association, which reportedly chose the person who measured the race course. In a statement following the race, Santiago 2023 said the official who measured the course "did not take accurate measurements of the route the athletes took during the race." The group continued, "We deeply regret the inconvenience for the athletes, their coaches, the public and the attending press, but this situation cannot be attributed to the Organizing Committee."
The Santiago 2023 Corporation, the group in charge of the 2023 Pan American Games, placed the blame on the Pan American Athletics Association, which reportedly chose the person who measured the race course. In a statement following the race, Santiago 2023 said the official who measured the course "did not take accurate measurements of the route the athletes took during the race." The group continued, "We deeply regret the inconvenience for the athletes, their coaches, the public and the attending press, but this situation cannot be attributed to the Organizing Committee."
Honesty in sports (Score:5, Interesting)
Every one of those women had personal timing devices, if you look at the video of the finish of the race some look astonished. I'm glad they brought it up to the event officials.
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Yep, they know their abilities, must have known it wasn't true.
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Organizer probably never bothered to actually measure the course and relied on Google maps or worse, GPS data on their cellphones or something. Who knows? Maybe they even asked AI to draw them a 20 kilometres course?
Re:Honesty in sports (Score:5, Informative)
Every one of those women had personal timing devices, if you look at the video of the finish of the race some look astonished. I'm glad they brought it up to the event officials.
Not just timing devices, a lot of them probably had GPS's.
Not to mention there would have been distance markers all over the course.
I few years ago I was running a marathon and the last few markers before the 10k mark were probably about 100m short. I remember looking at my time thinking it was way too fast, then looking at the distance on my watch to see the discrepancy, then looking at other runners who were doing exactly the same thing.
The women definitely knew the distance was wrong:
“We realized it since the first kilometer. The time did not coincide with the distance. It was more about us focusing on our feelings not to lose control,”
The quote from the executive director is doubly embarrassing:
Later, Harold Mayne-Nicholls the executive director of the games, told a local radio station it was an embarrassment but insisted the organizers had nothing to do with it.
“It is a shame because the race was beautiful and obviously the Peruvian athlete must have raised her hopes for a world record,” he said. “I was told they were going to correct this. If they didn’t, double shame.”
No, the Peruvian athlete wasn't an idiot who thought she had a world record. She was probably just happy that she won while being annoyed at the course being wrong and embarrassed having to deal with the people who were freaking out over her "world record time".
And it's definitely the screw up of the organizers, though there may be more blame to go around. My uninformed guess is the guy who rode out the course on a "calibrated bike" had done something like enter the wrong wheel size. Still with a 15% error it's surprising no one noticed the discrepancy and popped it into google maps.
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This. They are the organizers, they need to take responsibility for failing to oversee those they contracted to do THEIR job. Did they not have the contractors submit their results and have them reviewed? With something as critical as the distance. There are stories of people getting disqualified from races due to a qualifying race having a distance error. This has happened in 5k, 10k, half marathon, and marathon races.
They can certainly point out that the contractor did it wrong, but they need to take resp
Question (Score:5, Insightful)
If "... this situation cannot be attributed to the Organizing Committee," what is the actual purpose of the Organizing Committee?
Other than enriching themselves and their buddies, of course.
Re:Question (Score:5, Funny)
Harry Truman wasn't on the committee, obviously.
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"I don't take ANY responsibility for this!"
Someone clearly doesn't know where the buck stops.
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems like they understand the real-world stopping point just fine.
The buck stops with whoever is unable to dodge. Usually that's some underling who did what they were told before being sacrificed for the greater glory of their corrupt or incompetent boss.
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So it sounds like you're right. In my mind the Santiago 2023 Corporation is the PAOG, who is responsible for actually organizing the event (that wo
Re:Question (Score:4, Insightful)
To figure out who to blame (Score:2)
> "...this situation cannot be attributed to the Organizing Committee," what is the actual purpose of the Organizing Committee?
To figure out who to blame. That's what managers spend most their mental work on where I work.
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Sure dude, I bet women's race walking is a gold mine
that's what happens when you let merkins (Score:1)
Napkin math (Score:4)
Granted it's just rough math, but it looks like she would have clocked in at around 1hr 25min if she'd done the correct length, so she wasn't robbed of creating a new record or anything.
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Yeah but they still fucked up the entire event, wasted everyone's time and cost a number of people a lot of money on training, travel, etc, etc, etc.
There's no excuse.
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Yeah but they still fucked up the entire event, wasted everyone's time and cost a number of people a lot of money on training, travel, etc, etc, etc.
There's no excuse.
Huge screw up for sure, and probably very annoying to the athletes. But the results are still valid [results-santiago2023.org], just not world record worthy.
And to be honest, it probably didn't make a real difference in the rankings. It was a systemic error (all the markers were short) so athletes still knew how to pace and when to kick for the finish, etc. It's doubtful that the 17 vs 20k would have made a big difference in which athletes had the training to win.
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And to be honest, it probably didn't make a real difference in the rankings.
A near 20% difference in an endurance activity most definitely does make a difference. And yes as the article notes quite a few of the athletes noticed something was off during the race meaning different people would have different information and may have paced themselves differently.
No the results are not valid. They may be official for the event, but not "valid".
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And to be honest, it probably didn't make a real difference in the rankings.
A near 20% difference in an endurance activity most definitely does make a difference.
For athletes at that level you're probably talking at a pacing difference of like 1s/km. I don't think there would be any real difference in the rankings of a 17k vs 20k, and the difference in effort would be smaller than the difference due to other typical factors like hot or windy race days.
And yes as the article notes quite a few of the athletes noticed something was off during the race meaning different people would have different information and may have paced themselves differently.
No the results are not valid. They may be official for the event, but not "valid".
"A few of the athletes"? ALL of the athletes would have realized the 1km marker (or whichever the first one was) was in the wrong spot, and same with the next, and then they would have figured out it was a short course
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They were saving their juice until 1h15m then they were going to sprint to the finish.
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I know you are joking, but they do actually speed up towards the end in a walking race. It looks hilarious, like they are rushing to the toilet or something.
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Who's to say they aren't? Remember, everyone poops [wikipedia.org].
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Incorrectly. (Score:3, Informative)
It was measured incorrectly, not measured "wrong."
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Yes, but that won't fit in the 54 character limit for a slashdot headline.
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Hypercorrection.
Wrong as long been used as an adverb, as Samuel Johnson's 1755 Dictionary [archive.org] (i.e. the authoritative English dictionary until the OED) shows. It has two separate lemmas for "wrong" - one as an adjective, and one as an adverb. The latter definition reads "not rightly, amiss." It quotes John Locke for attestation: ".... may make one man quote another man's words wrong," which is surely analogous to the passage to which you refer.
Merriam Webster [merriam-webster.com] also provides an adverbial definition "without ac
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It's a perfectly cromulent use of the word "wrong".
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It would be interesting to know the details (Score:3)
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How was the course measured? Did someone just pull up Google maps, plot the course, and then declared victory?
I'd like to try it, but I'll bet a rough Google Maps measurement wouldn't be that far off. 15% is a rather large error.
Race Walking (Score:2)
Obviously race walking should be banned
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It looks painful to watch, so unnatural. Gotta be hard on ligaments and joints. The flip side is there's less pounding motion compared to running.
Source of error? (Score:5, Informative)
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They got 17km in, got bored, and said "meh, good enough, who will know or care?"
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My experience is if you use google maps and the measure distance (function) it is no where close to 15% off (either way). The walkers indicated they new something was wrong with the course when the crossed the first 1km marker (time was too fast), so it would have to be a short wheel (maybe the tire on the wheel was supposed to be aired up to a certain pressure and was not or the tire it was calibrated with was missing). I know when I did cross country 30 years ago we had a wheel with a counter and I reme
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It would be hilarious if the method was "Bike, what bike? I used Google Maps."
I think Google Maps would have been a lot more accurate than whatever they did. 15% is a large error.
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My guess is faulty equipment. Incompetent workers who didn't know how to do the task is my second choice.
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They should have at least two different measuring tools or techniques, and a different person perform each measurement.
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If they are reasonably close to each other, average the two. If not, bring in a 3rd watch and check the first two.
I know, that's not as catchy of a saying. But, Sheldon Cooper liked it.
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They should have at least two different measuring tools or techniques, and a different person perform each measurement.
I'm going to guess they just didn't care that much. Race walking is already a bit of a niche sport, the women's events are already second fiddle, and PanAm isn't really a premiere competition. For all of the Americas only 15 athletes showed up [results-santiago2023.org].
The athletes themselves are still extremely elite, but the organization is a lot more low-key and ad-hoc than you'd expect.
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Maybe there is some measurement app, the bike they rode on had 27" wheels, and they misclicked the UI and selected 24" wheels from a drop-down? 3" difference would be in the right ballpark....
Grammar Grammar! (Score:2)
Eh ehm. "...measured wrongly", please.
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-This is not a formal communication medium.
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A wee bit of an error (Score:2)
Off by almost 2 miles? Even Pokemon Go is more accurate.
Gives a whole new meaning.. (Score:2)
To being off by a mile
Race walking? (Score:2)
Don't they normally call that "running"?
Yeah, I get it, there's some difference in the type of stride. It just seems kind of like a boxing championship where everyone must tie one hand behind their back.
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only one measurement, by only one person? (Score:3)
Off by 15% (Score:2)
Who performed Quality Assurance on this? They accepted the race length at 20km and didn't test to find that it was actually 17 km...
Measure Twice, Cut Once ? (Score:2)
Have none of the people in this organization ever had to do a moment of science in their lives? You're forever checking your calibrations, running standard materials, confirming that the set-up is correct ...
You never believe your instruments until you've no option but to believe them.
What's that Feynmanism? "The first principle is that you must not fool yourself - and you are the easiest person to fool."