Paula Radcliffe should not be stripped of her marathon world record

World's best: this is no longer considered a world record

Having plumbed the depths of incompetence with its botched elections at last month’s Congress in Daegu, the International Association of Athletics Federations has not exactly covered itself in glory with its ill-considered decision to strip Paula Radcliffe of the marathon world record she set in London in 2003.

In its wisdom, the world governing body has decreed that only times set in women-only road races will now be counted as world records and that world marks set in mixed races will be downgraded to the less prestigious classification of ‘world best’.

Because the 2003 London Marathon was mixed, Radcliffe’s remarkable time of 2hr 15min 25sec will no longer be recognised as the world record.

Instead, the time of 2hr 17min 42sec she set in winning the women-only 2005 London Marathon is now the official world mark.

Radcliffe has described the decision to apply the new rule retrospectively as “unfair”, and she has every right to feel aggrieved.

It is a classic case of fixing something that ain’t broken – in a sport where there are plenty of things crying out for repair.

The strangeness of the IAAF’s decision is underlined by a glance at the current list of women’s world records.

Many were set in to the drug-tainted 1980s, perhaps never to be broken without pharmaceutical help, yet the record-breakers remain honoured in the history books in indelible ink.

The governing body has stubbornly resisted calls to sweep away the old, suspicious records and start afresh with a clean slate.

But, presented with statistical evidence that mixed races tend to produce faster women’s times than women-only races, the IAAF rushed to judgment with a knee-jerk response that has erased arguably the greatest women’s world record of them all.

Why, you may well wonder, has the issue suddenly reared its head more than eight years after Radcliffe set her world record on the streets of London?

The reason is that IAAF’s road-running commission has for some time been agitating for the creation of separate world records for mixed and women-only road races to recognise the performance advantage women can gain from being paced by male runners in a mixed race.

The proposal to establish two records of equal weight and prestige was formally proposed by commission member David Bedford, the race director of the London Marathon, at the IAAF’s Congress.

But the idea has proved to be an own goal. Congress delegates accepted the argument about performance differentials but rather than creating two world records, they went along with a recommendation from the IAAF’s ruling council to downgrade records set in mixed races and recognise only women-only races for world record purposes.

The decision has caused consternation in the road-running world and both World Marathon Majors, who represent the five biggest city marathons, and the Association of International Marathons have stated that they will defy the IAAF and recognise two separate world records for women’s road-running performances.

The two quickest marathon times of Radcliffe’s career were both set in mixed races – in London in 2003 and in Chicago the previous year – but she rejects the idea that she was helped by the presence of male runners in the field.

“In my two mixed races it was not my decision, rather the race organisers', to have male runners with me, and in each case I very consciously ran alongside them rather than ever behind,” she said.

“Indeed, in London, I was actively racing the two guys. Furthermore, I fully believe that I would have run pretty much the same time that day alone with the crowds and motorbikes.”

But even if Radcliffe did derive an advantage, so what? The IAAF had no problem with Haile Gebrselassie running with a coterie of pace-makers when he established the men’s world record in the 2008 Berlin Marathon.

But in 2002-03, when Radcliffe was at her peak, there was not a woman in the world who could have paced her in a 26.2-mile race, such was her domination of women’s marathon running. Only male runners could have done the job.

The point is that, during that golden period, Radcliffe ran out of her gender, and her time in London in 2003 was that fastest marathon by a British athlete, male or female, in the entire year.

It was one of the greatest athletics performances of all time and it deserves far better than to be downgraded by a governing body that should have known better.