Parkrun to remove course records

[Ingenieur]

In response to criticism of its "gender categorisation policies", Parkrun are now removing a suite of details and records from the site.

https://twitter.com/Cantspekl/status/1755170910787490028

One more thing taken away...

This is absolutely outraging. I really enjoy pouring over the stats of a Saturday and its nice to be able to congratulate a fellow runner on an age group cat win or a PB.

It'll be interesting to see whether the removal of the records will further increase outrage amongst runners when they realise that people like 'Lauren' Jeska still hold first female records.

So everyone suffers rather than offend a tiny minority? Nice.

People like 'Lauren' Jeska

Yes, of all the people to hold that record!

I'm wondering if it might be quite useful. Things tend to happen quicker when men are inconvenienced.

I wonder though how they can realistically police entries. They rely on people giving their age and sex, and if someone says they're a 40 year old woman who is going to check and tell them, "No, you're actually a man?" (Or, perhaps, "No, you're actually 29!") Remember too that race officials are volunteers.

I'm not saying that this outcome is desirable, just that I think they would struggle as they rely on people's good faith to enter the right category.

No special feelz must be hurt.

That’s the thing. They don’t ask anyone for ID. You could make up your age just as easily as your sex.

However, in that case they should not issues rankings. The men’s record holder got an ad spot in the paper talking about running. Can’t remember what it was promoting but obviously the fastest woman would get the same opportunity as the fastest woman is….a man.

It will be interesting to see how all the people shouting down women with, “it’s not a race, it’s only your individual time that should matter to you” feel now.

Of course it's an honour system, people could lie. But people mostly don't. The reason this was upsetting was that people were lying, from one perspective, in a way that prevented others from seeing and being able to understand their own achievement. Women not being able to think 'damn, I ran faster than every other woman that day/woman my age/woman ever'. Or that they were top three, top five, whatever.

It's a copout. I see why they've done it but they're copping out. And the usual suspects on twitter will blame - surprise! - women.

Cowards

Parkrun were backed into a corner. On Twitter every happy feel good post they made was met with angry replies from angry women!

I'm a veteran parkrunner and whilst it's great its become such a wordwide success and "it's not a race", "everyone welcome", they can't ignore that for a very large number of people "it is a race"!! The stats are great for comparing with friends.

On the plus side, it's one more thing that exposures the ridiculousness of men inserting themselves in women's spaces.

My 9 year old son will be very sad that the age category is gone. He is regularly in the 1 or 2 position for his age.

It would be so much similar to have male/female/all and then same again with ages.

yup

Hi - just to clarify, I’m not 100% sure that all of the weekly rankings are going.
I got the impression it was more course records, top 500s etc rather than stats related to weekly races but I may be mistaken.

As an avid parkrunner this has really annoyed me!

It looks like you can still get lists of fastest finishers in a specific age and gender catagory (click on the catagory name under the parkrunner name on the results list).

They are just copping out of addressing the actual issue (men free to LARP at the expense of women at their events) and pissing everyone off a little bit in order to protect the special sad penis gender feels of a tiny group of people. Of course it happens to fit nicely into their "it's not a race gov, honest" wankery, sorry, I mean narrative, as well so they don't even have to grow a pair enough to actually say why they are doing it.

As per, it'll be the women complaining about men invading their space that get the blame for the inconvenience rather than the men and the cowardly parkrun HQ.

My male running buddy tells me that his (mostly male) What's App running club chat has exploded this evening!

I think they had to remove the records in order to keep the ‘not a race’ argument for registration by gender rather than sex. I also get that they want everyone to feel they can participate so understand why they are not wanting to say transwomen can’t register as female. They do have the option to register as ‘prefer not to say’ or ‘another gender identity’. Even if they did change the language to sex, people convinced by gender ideology wouldn’t change their registration and it can’t be policed so it would only be a point of principle and they would exchange the gender critical twitter attacks for trans activist twitter attacks.

I am annoyed that they have removed more stats than they needed to at the same time. Attendance records? Are they worried it leads to encouraging parkruns to be too big?

The age category records are still there. If you for example you go into your local results and click on an age group, it is a clickable link.

The first finishers table is still there too, but you have to google it, so I don't know long it will be there for. Every weekend, the website Fast Running does a round-up of the top 10 male and female finishers across the UK (and another one for Ireland) and I assume they use that page - it will be much more difficult and time consuming to trawl through every parkrun website.

I do wonder if they will amend the results email too so all it says it overall position, time and age grading.

In the parkrun stats group it's transphobic women's fault for daring to have an opinion of course, rather than cheaty male runners running as women. Of course it is.

I don't understand the attendance records removal either, I don't think anyone tries to increase those, it just happens naturally for a whole variety of reasons.

As per, it'll be the women complaining about men invading their space that get the blame for the inconvenience rather than the men and the cowardly parkrun HQ

exactly right. Abusive and relentless people attacking event teams every week. What a load of nonsense - all they were doing was wearing "save womens sport" t-shirts.

It will be interesting to see how all the people shouting down women with, “it’s not a race, it’s only your individual time that should matter to you” feel now
I'm one who thinks it's not a race, it's only your individual time that should matter"
(and expressing that opinion and disagreeing with you on a subject doesn't mean you're being shouted down for goodness sake)
I still maintain my view, and at least this way I suppose you won't have people scrutinising the results stats comparing themselves to others and then taking it upon themselves to police who should or shouldn't be where.
Parkrun have always maintained they're a fun run for everyone, at least if this is what they're doing it solves the problem I suppose.
It's never been competitive.

How long will it take for.new records to be started? 🤔

Parkrun have always maintained they're a fun run for everyone, at least if this is what they're doing it solves the problem I suppose

no, they haven't. It started out as a time trial.

The fun run (walk) for everyone started when they realised they could unlock a lot of health-related funding and encourage lots of people to take up exercise (as well as volunteering and having a social outlet).

But its origins were in a time trial.

And "inclusive" means for everyone, including the fastest runners.

It started as a time trial so yes it was competitive.