Nike, one of Paula Radcliffe's main sponsors, has instigated a Twitter campaign - #historystands - to support her quest to get the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) to reverse its new ruling that women's marathon times set in mixed races are reclassified as "world bests" rather than "world records".

Well, it would, wouldn't it?

Commercially, having a world record holder is better than having a world best holder.

And although Radcliffe still holds that distinction, thanks to her time of 2 hours 17min 42sec set in a women's only race at the 2005 running of the London Marathon, that mark is within range now for a number of leading female marathon runners - including Mary Jepkosgei Keitany, who was just 97 seconds adrift in winning this year's women's race in London with 2:19.19, and Russia's Liliya Shobukhova, who indicated her growing stature by winning the admittedly mixed race in Chicago last Sunday in 2:18.20.

Radcliffe's stance has attracted the support of organisers of the world's top marathons, including Dave Bedford, race director for the London Marathon, although that again is a partly self-interested position to take. No race director wants to see the records set at his or her marathon effectively downgraded - why would they?


The British 37-year-old mother of two, back on course for an Olympic appearance on home soil at London 2012, can see her younger opponents nibbling away at her advantage. Reclaiming her record of 2:15:25 from the mixed London 2002 race would shift that prize significantly further away from her rivals.

The IAAF ruling, which comes into effect on January 1, 2012, cannot be changed until, at the earliest, the next IAAF Congress in 2013, by which time Radcliffe may or may not still be competing.

However, that didn't prevent her from travelling to Monaco this week to personally lobby the IAAF President, Lamine Diack on the topic. Radcliffe, fluent in French and bright as the North Star, is a formidable force both on and off the roads. But Diack didn't get where he is today without being a very wily politician.

So when Radcliffe came away reporting that Diack had appeared "understanding", and was now considering the situation, it could mean anything or nothing.

Commercial factors aside, Radcliffe's position has attracted widespread support from fellow athletes, as the Twitter feed makes plain. Mo Farah was the most recent of those enjoining followers to send a tweet of support to Radcliffe, and to follow the campaign.

The IAAF's decision was rooted in a desire to prevent women being effectively "towed" to new marks by male pacemakers - an option which those in women's only races, including those at the IAAF World Championships and the Olympic Games, do not have.

But it is not a happy position.


How, for instance, does this ruling sit with the pacemaking which has been a part of middle distance track world records since that fabled run of Roger Bannister's (pictured) at Iffley Road back in 1954?

Why is it OK to get towed to a world 10,000-metre record, but not a world marathon record?

More paranoid Britons might look at the IAAF ruling alongside the  decision to reclassify the cycling events after the 2004 Olympics, taking out the kilo - the 1km time trial at which Britain's Chris Hoy excelled - and, after the 2008 Games, the individual pursuit, at which Rebecca Romero was gold medallist.

They might also rope in this week's ruling that Wayne Rooney, England's paramount talent, must sit out the group qualification stages at next year's European Championships following his three-match ban for being sent off against Montenegro.

And more paranoid Britons might wonder if someone up there is out to get them.

But if that may be a line of enquiry too far, the IAAF position goes against a sense of natural justice. In the sport of athletics, records are retrospectively annulled for the taint of drugs. To put Radcliffe, and others, into this territory simply for toeing the line with fellow athletes who included men seems almost indecent.

And once this kind of retrospective manipulation starts, other injustices can follow. Retrospective judgment is often vexed, as the contrasting positions of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and it's contrary baby the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) on the question of whether it is right to take away relay runners' medals if one of their number subsequently proves to have been doping.

The question of reassigning medals once one has been taken from a discovered doper has also proved to be a point of debate.

When the extent of the East German doping regime was discovered, almost a decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, there was a huge debate about effectively wiping a whole generation of sporting records, particularly in the field of athletics and swimming, the areas where the GDR was most ruthlessly effective in terms of results.

It is the collateral damage of such an exercise that is unjust. Who can know absolutely, for instance, if those promoted to glory are spotlessly clean themselves?


Once you start down the road of rewriting history, your mission soon becomes impossibly complex.

Mike Rowbottom, one of Britain's most talented sportswriters, has covered the last five Summer and four Winter Olympics for The Independent. Previously he has worked for the Daily Mail, The Times, The Observer, the Sunday Correspondent and The Guardian. He is now chief feature writer for insidethegames. Rowbottom's Twitter feed can be accessed here.