Decathlon 2000 › News › Rule change IAAF technical rules: wind readings combined events
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Rule change IAAF technical rules: wind readings combined events (9)

Feb 11, 2010

Dear combined events fan,

In the new IAAF rule book, which has been published recently I have discovered that a rule change has been included which will have major consequenses for the combined events.
None of my international contacts, who I meanwhile contacted, knew about this rule change, nor were informed that this rule change was going to be implemented.
Consequently in my opinion no athlete, coach, organizer or any other interested person in combined events knew of this rule change.

It concerns rule 260-27 which is the rule about wind measuring in combined events.
In the existing rule a performance was valid in case:
1. the wind assistance was < 4,0 second in the events were wind measurement is needed
2. if the average of the 3 events is < 2,0 second

In the new rule item 1 does not exist anymore and a performance now is only legal if the average of the 3 events is < 2,0 second

I have calculated the consequenses from this and come to the following conclusions in my rankings:

Total no wind wind wind assisted wind assisted
info info old rule new rule
Top 1.000 all time:
Men 1.000 385 615 61 113 18,4%
Women 1.000 365 635 47 97 15,3%

Men >8.000 1.977 424 1.553 73 151 9,7%
Women >6.000 2.417 561 1.856 68 148 8,0%

Above this the following national records (>7.500 men and >5.500 women) are now wind assisted and could not approved anymore as national records with the new rule:
Men:
IRL 7.882 Carlos O'Connell
NOR 8.160 Benjamin Jensen
Women:
FRA 6.889 Eunice Barber
POL 6.616 Malgorzata Nowak
RUS 7.007 Larissa Nikitina

The general idea inside combined events experts is that there is hardly any advantage for athletes with wind assistance below 4 meter/second. Moreover, as also other events are conducted during the competition days there will be a disadvantage, due to strong wind, in other events during these days,such as high jump, pole vault, throwing events and 400, 1.500 m. (resp. 800 m.)

The experts I conducted meanwhile are all the opinion that this rule change is a big disadvantage for the athletes and also for the interest of the meetings. As combined events athletes can only participate in a limited number of meetings during the year (and even less to qualify for International Championships) I foresee that many athletes will quit from the competition at the moment they know that their performance will not be legal, in order to give them another possibility to qualify in another meeting. This will be very negative for organizations and the level of the competitions which are held prior to the International Championships.

Meanwhile I contacted Konrad Lerch - meeting director of Götzis - and he will discuss this issue with Pierre Weiss- IAAF genral secretary - in Doha during the WC indoor.
I promised him that I will collect all reactions in one report, which we can handover to Pierre Weiss.

I kindly ask you to distribute this letter further to your contacts like, coaches, athletes, organizers and other combined events fans to ask them to mail their reaction to me before February 28th. I will include all these reactions in this report. My e-mail adrress is: hvankuijen@planet.nl

I would also appreciate it if you give attention on this issue on your internet sites.

I look forward to your reaction.

With kind regards,
Hans van Kuijen

Comments (9)

Phil Vassallo wrote on Feb 11, 2010
Janek, your observations are on target. The truth is, the advantage of a wind-aided performance in one or two decathlon events for one athlete over another is minimal when all ten events are tallied. I never understood the value of wind-aided contingency rules in decathlons except, possibly, in cases of world records. Why discourage participation or apply disclaimers on exceptional performances?
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Janek Salmistu wrote on Feb 11, 2010
The maximum legal wind assistance is 2.0 meters per second. If the runners of a race receive more wind assistance than this, their times will not be eligible as collegiate, national, or world records.

During events like decathlon, the rule is slightly different. The maximum allowable wind is 4.0 meters per second for any one event, but 2.0 meters per second on average across all applicable disciplines.

For example:
0,4/4,5/0,3 is illegal
4,1/3,5/-1,3 is illegal
2,4/1,2/0,3 is legal
1,8/3,0/1,2 is legal
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Daniel Urien wrote on Feb 12, 2010
"Rule 260
27. The conditions shall have been complied with in each of the
individual events, except that, in events where wind velocity is
measured, at least one of the following conditions shall be satisfied:
(a) The velocity in any individual event shall not exceed plus 4 metres
per second.
(b) The average velocity (based on the 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."

At least, one of the 2 conditions means
. not exceed 4 m/s
OR
. the average not exceed 2 m/s

In this way

4,1-3,5-0,0 is illegal
4,1-0,0-0,0 is legal
2,1-2,0-2,0 is illegal

Am I in the truth ???
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Daniel Urien wrote on Feb 12, 2010
oooops

2,1 - 2,0 - 2,0 is legal !

Sorry
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Daniel Urien wrote on Feb 19, 2010
I have made a simulation on 14.826 performances (decathon > 6.800 points, senior and junior implements, with all wind informations in each event) :

12.972 (87,5%) were legal and will stay legal
836 (5,6%) were illegal and will stay illegal of course
and 1.018 (6,9%) were legal and will became illegal with the new rule !
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Janek Salmistu wrote on Feb 19, 2010
S.O.S.
Here comes the thunderstorm.
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ChrisB wrote on Feb 27, 2010
As I understand, "at least ONE of the following conditions shall be satisfied" means the total sum of the winds in the three performances can never be more than +6.0 m/sec !
+4.1/+1.9/ 0.0 = total of +6.0 legal
+3.9/+2.1/ +0.1 = total of +6.1 illegal
-4.1/+5.9/+4.1 = total of + 5.9 legal
+6.8/-4.9/+4.1 = total of +6.0 legal

Am I right?
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eierluke wrote on Jan 31, 2012
Just took a look at the iaaf toplists of 2011 (http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2011/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=DEC/detail.html)
and they do not even follow their own rule!
They still do list results with Wind over 4 m/s in one event as illegal and do count results where the combined wind has been over 6,0 m/s!
Do they simply not know about their own rules or did they revert their rule change?
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eierluke wrote on Jan 31, 2012
Hans wrote:
"I foresee that many athletes will quit from the competition at the moment they know that their performance will not be legal, in order to give them another possibility to qualify in another meeting. This will be very negative for organizations and the level of the competitions which are held prior to the international championships."
Sorry Hans but, I can't follow your logic here: under the old rules an athlete might have quit early on, once he has realised that his 100m or long jump had been with wind assistance of i.e. 4,1 m/s, because that would have meant that his result will definitely be illegal - at an early stage.
Under the new rules an athlete will not know whether his result will be legal or illegal until after having finished the 110m hurdles! The danger of an athletes quitting early on will get reduced this way.
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