Where’s my World Record Mr Rusek?
Five months ago (16-18th March to be precise), top Irish runner, Tony Mangan competed in the Brno 48hr Indoor Race and ran the race of his life. At the end of the race he had run 426.178km and was advised that it was a new Indoor 48hr World Record by the Race Director, Tomas Rusek.
The trouble is, Tomas Rusek the Race director of the Brno 48hr race has done nothing in the past five months to get Tony’s distance certified with the IAU. He has been receiving countless emails from Tony, myself and Norman Wilson from the IAU (I must say at this stage that Norman has been an excellent help with this and I think he is going to be brilliant in the IAU records role). Yes, I believe that Tomas works away from home a lot and is very busy. But it doesn’t take five months to prepare the required paperwork for a World Record verification.
All I can think of is that there has been a problem with the lap counting during the race or the measurement of the track has been wrong all these years. Why else, would it take so long?
I know this fiasco with Tomas Rusek has taken a lot of the “good and joy”
out of the immense achievement and has left a sour taste in Tony Mangan’s mouth. He did want to compete in Brno in 2008, but knows that this probably wont occur now.
Do the right thing Mr Rusek. By yourself, by Tony and by the sport. Send Tony’s paperwork to the IAU promptly.
Phil Essam
PS – Does anyone else have any tales of woe trying to get their records verified by very slow Race Directors? I know that this isn’t the first time that Tomas Rusek has done this to a Top International Runner and Tony may have many months to wait yet before this is fixed!
Planet Ultramarathon 
Posted on August 19, 2007 by planetultramarathon