Athletics world records set to be wiped

A slew of suspect world records, including one set in Canberra in 1985, will be erased under a radical IAAF plan.

Marita Koch and Florence Griffiths-Joyner are set to have their world record wiped from the record books.

A slew of suspect world records - including Marita Koch’s astounding 400m mark set in Canberra more than three decades ago - are to be wiped from the record books under a sweeping proposal considered by the world athletics body the IAAF.

The radical move, which has to be approved by officials later in the year, is meant to restore some credibility to the world records, but will result in the wiping of some other records considered above suspicion.

There are 12 men’s world records in Olympic events, and 18 women’s records in Olympic events (all outdoors) that would be culled under the plan.

Other pre-2005 world records for indoor events and non-Olympic events will also be “recalibrated”.

World record holding British athletes, Paula Radcliffe and triple jumper Jonathan Edwards have hit out at the plan. Edwards said he had always anticipated losing his world record leap of 18.29m but not to a sporting administrator.

Radcliffe, who set the marathon world record in 2003 said she was hurt by the move and felt it would damage her reputation and dignity.

She said: ’’It is a heavy handed way to wipe out some really suspicious records in a cowardly way by simply sweeping all aside instead of having the guts to take the legal plunge and wipe any record that would be found in a court of law to have been illegally assisted.’’

The move comes after the European Athletics Association proposed the changes to put to the IAAF at its meeting in August.

Svein Arne Hansen, the European Athletics president, said world records “are meaningless if people don’t really believe them”.

Legendary Moroccan runner Hicham El Guerrouj. Picture: AFP

IAAF president Sebastian Coe said: “There will be athletes, current record holders, who will feel that the history we are recalibrating will take something away from them, but if organised and structured properly we have a good chance of winning back credibility in this area.’’

Under the plan world record holders will have had to have been drug tested at least six times in the months before setting the world record and the drug sample taken at the competition where the record was set must be stored and available for retesting.

It means all records set before 2005 - the year that the IAAF first started storing samples - will only be considered on the all-time lists and not recognised as being the world records.

The move will wipe some of the most enduring and memorable athletics moments from the record books, including long jumper Mike Powell’s leap of 8.95m in 1991 that usurped Bob Beamon’s high altitude mark; and Hicham El Guerrouj’s 1500m time of 3min 26.00sec he set in Rome in 1998.

But the suspect efforts of Koch, as well as the 1988 world 100m and 200m records of Florence Griffiths-Joyner and the 1983 800m time set by Jarmila Kratochvílová will also go. No woman has got close to those marks in the three decades since they were established.

However more recent world records, including those created by Usain Bolt in the sprints will stand because the holders have satisfied the drug testing and drug storage criteria.