It seems a number of athletics federations around the world don't adhere to this principal when it comes to recognizing national records.
For example, as listed in Winfried Kramer's national athletics records booklet, most of the current German women's records were set by athletes competing under the banner of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany). And, going the other way, when the Soviet Union broke up, a lot of the new federations grandfathered/grandmothered as national records marks by USSR athletes rather than start from when the new nation was formed (or re-formed). -----Original Message----- From: Ed and Dana Parrot [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 10:49 AM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: t-and-f: Pre-league records Jim - > Should a mark set by someone from a league member school prior to the formal organization of the league be >considered the league record? > My gut feeling is no, therefore giving rise to the possibility that a school record could be better than the league mark >(which is not a problem). This is more to determine what the existing league record was (and by extension > whether it was broken in a meet last weekend) Much easier than the four minute mile question (although poring through an old T&F News issue is very enjoyable) - of course not. A league is an entity that din't exist when the mark was set. If an 8th grader in a middle school runs 4:15 for the mile, and didn't get faster when he got to high school, the high school wouldn't consider that the school record. It's the same thing. - Ed Parrot