Peres Jepchirchir

[KnickerlessParsons]

It's sad that, these days, whenever I see that a woman has broken a sporting record, I find myself checking that she really is a woman ☹️
Well done Peres Jepchirchir on breaking the London "women's' only" world record at the London Mararthon.

Does "women's only" mean no men allowed? 🤞🏽
I couldn't see any reference to a "men's only" record.

I must admit I'm the same. And the first report I saw of this had a photo that looked very androgynous (and it's a somewhat strange headline too) - when I googled, I saw she is obviously a woman. But basically I don't trust the press any more.

Yes the ‘women only’ record is for races where the women start separately to the elite men. This means it is generally a little harder for women to set a record-breaking time as there aren’t any fast men running a similar time to go along with in a pack.
So the fastest women’s marathon times are normally set in races with a mixed start.

Fortunately women’s distance running seems to be happily female only (currently at least)

Yes, 'women's only' means no male 'pace makers' are in the race at any point.

And that's always struck me as odd. Are male pacemakers a physical advantage to the women, lowering the wind resistance or something like that? Otherwise, you could argue that fast women are being artificially disadvantaged by the lack of fast pacemakers.

I see! Thank you for the explanation.

@Londoner256 thank you for the explanation. But does the lack of a male pacemaker mean that the participants in the “women only” race are all female?

The London Marathon comes under the British Athletics rules. British Athletics (a brand name of UK Athletics) accepted the World Athletics ruling that transwomen could no longer compete in women’s competitions. The rules came into effect on March 31st last year.

There was a controversy last year as a transwoman ran who ran in the women’s category was interviewed on the BBC. It’s not clear if they simply lied on their forms or were allowed to under transitional rules because the regulations had been brought in after people had entered (and transwomen had previously been allowed if they had suppressed testosterone). However, even under the transitional rules, transwomen were not allowed to set female records or win female prizes.

So any women’s records set in British Athletics events like the London Marathon should, nowadays at least, not be given to transwomen (DSDs however, come under different rules so not sure if all holders will be reliably female).