Danish ultrarunner Stine Rex has been racking up high-level performances in ultrarunning for years, however her 2024 performances symbolize a step forward for each her and the game. Nevertheless, one among her efforts has additionally uncovered the rising pains that may occur when a sport progresses so rapidly that its organizers and directors can’t sustain.
At the start of September 2024, Rex reset the ladies’s six-day world file, working 913.606 kilometers (567.688 miles) on the 2024 6 dagsløb i Åbybro race in her residence nation. This file remains to be awaiting ratification, as is a standard a part of the method for working information and a standard timeline.
Earlier this yr, on the 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships in Hungary, Rex set a ladies’s 48-hour world file of 435.564 kilometers (270.646 miles). However now, many months later, Rex’s effort has not been ratified and is as an alternative the middle of an unresolved ratification debacle.
We spoke to some events concerned on this complicated case, which serves as a cautionary story to runners and occasion organizers, and tried to find out if this record-breaking run can ever be ratified.
Stine Rex on the way in which to setting a brand new six-day file on the 2024 6 dagsløb i Åbybro. Picture: Simon Haugaard
Stine Rex’s Girls’s 48-Hour World File on the 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships
The 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships passed off on the weekend of Could 31 in Hungary. GOMU stands for the International Group of Multi-Day Ultramarathoning. As talked about above, Rex set a brand new ladies’s 48-hour world file by protecting 435.564k (270.646 miles). This distance bettered, by 228 meters, the mark of 435.366k (270.505 miles) set by Camille Herron (U.S) on the 2023 Sri Chinmoy 48-Hour Pageant in Australia.
Not solely that, however second place Irina Masanova (Russia) ran 434.912k (270.2 miles), solely 652 meters behind Rex and the third-longest distance recorded so far in a ladies’s 48-hour race. In third place was Viktória Brown (Hungary, lives in Canada), with 405.0k, making it a historic three ladies who surpassed 400k in a single occasion.
To additional illustrate the current rise in performances at 48 hours, previous to this race, solely three ladies had damaged 400k for 48 hours — Herron, Poland’s Patrycja Bereznowska (3 times), and Jo Zakrzewski (U.Okay.).
There was a lot pleasure throughout social media and media retailers following this occasion, about each Rex’s record-setting efficiency and the depth of its ladies’s competitors.
Stine Rex on the 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships. Picture: Runion/Pápai Heni
Within the males’s race, Poland’s Bartosz Fudali ran 447.2k (277.9 miles), Nicolas de las Heras (Spain) coated 441.3k (269.6 miles), and Beda Szabolcs of Hungary went 433.9k (269.6 miles). These three distances have been the fourth, fifth, and sixth greatest recorded in a males’s 48-hour race, behind three distances from the legendary Greek runner Yiannis Kouros, whose males’s 48-hour world file of 473.495k (294.296 miles), set in 1996, remains to be held in reverence.
Some eyebrows have been raised in regards to the massive will increase in private bests over 48 hours by a number of of the athletes. Nevertheless, for context, males’s winner Fudali had a earlier 48-hour private better of 433.3k (269.2 miles), set when profitable the 2024 Taipei 48-Hour Ultramarathon. He was additionally third behind Harvey Lewis within the 2023 Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely.
Second-place de las Heras has a 24-hour private better of 261.6k (162.6 miles) from the 2023 IAU 24-Hour European Championships. Szabolcs in third place had a earlier 48-hour private better of 410.3k (255.0 miles) from 2022. He additionally gained the 2023 EMU Six Day World Trophy with 803.7k (499.4 miles).
The ultimate three (left to proper), Bartosz Fudali, Ihor Verys, and Harvey Lewis, on the 2023 Huge Canine’s Yard Extremely. Picture: Mike Trimpe
Rex, though solely having a earlier 48-hour better of 335.7k from 2018, does have a 24-hour private better of 245.9k (152.8 miles), set when inserting fifth within the 2023 IAU 24-Hour World Championships. Masanova was working her first 48-hour race, however got here into it with a 24-hour private better of 247.9k (154.1 miles). Brown, in third place for the ladies, had a earlier 48-hour better of 349.7k (217.3 miles).
Whenever you put a gaggle of high quality athletes collectively in a single race, historical past reveals that, regardless of the distance, the collective effort pushes them to nice performances. That was positively the case for this occasion, in each the ladies’s and males’s races.
Problems With Ratifying Stine Rex’s Girls’s 48-Hour World File
The performances from Hungary took 48-hour working to a brand new degree. Nevertheless, the occasion didn’t seem like sanctioned by the Hungarian Athletics Affiliation (MASZ) or have acquired a label from the Worldwide Affiliation of Ultrarunners (IAU).
Some readers might imagine, No large deal, what’s the drawback right here? It’s a world championships occasion, with athletes working phenomenal distances. Let’s have fun. Nevertheless, the IAU is the worldwide physique that ratifies and retains information for most traditional extremely distances. Having an IAU label at any ultra-distance race is a prerequisite for a efficiency to be ratified for each rankings and information.
This isn’t a singular scenario. Earlier this yr, the French athlete Marie-Ange Brumelot surpassed the present ladies’s 100k European file, and have become solely the second lady to interrupt seven hours, working 6:56:54. The occasion in France, the 2024 100km à Pied de Steenwerck, didn’t have a allow from the French federation or an IAU label, so it Brumelot’s run was ineligible for ratification.
What Is the IAU, and What Is an IAU Label?
The IAU has advanced over time to be the worldwide extremely physique — acknowledged by each World Athletics and regional our bodies like USA Observe and Discipline and European Athletics — to stage and promote world championships for the 50k, 100k, and 24-hour occasions. It additionally works with the Worldwide Path Working Affiliation and World Mountain Working Affiliation, which respectively administer the sports activities of path working and mountain working, to stage the World Mountain and Path Working Championships (WMTRC).
The beginning of the 2023 Path World Championships 80k. Picture: iRunFar/Meghan Hicks
The IAU additionally works to ratify and maintain absolute and masters age group information for extremely distances in any respect the principle occasions from 50k via to 6 days.
The IAU labeling system has advanced to make sure sure fundamental organizational requirements are met. As with allowing for any observe, street, path, and mountain race all over the world, it ensures uniformity and equity. It additionally alerts athletes that the organizers have these fundamental necessities in place. The IAU doesn’t make large calls for earlier than issuing a license, solely 4 major ones:
- The occasion should first have a license from the native nationwide federation, and comply with the nationwide federation’s guidelines.
- For a point-to-point street course, or a paved lapped occasion, the course will need to have been measured by a federation-qualified course measurer with the course measurement certificates out there for all to see.
- A suitably certified federation-approved referee, with judges as required, should be appointed upfront.
- Additionally, if applicable, guide timekeepers performing as a backup to any chip timing system should oversee the occasion. For file functions, guide timekeeping is required as an important backup, and the referee should additionally make sure the course raced is identical as what was measured. For a loop course, that is important as a small discrepancy in course format can result in considerably roughly distance being raced.
For the 2024 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships, we’ve seen a measurement report undertaken by Péter Pignitzky, an Affiliation of Worldwide Marathons and Distance Races/World Athletics grade B measurer. GOMU informed us that Pignitzky was a professional referee, ticking two key bins. Sadly, because the occasion passed off, Pignitzky has handed away.
Nevertheless, neither a MASZ sanction nor an IAU label was issued earlier than the race, and it’s this indisputable fact that’s prevented Rex’s distance from being eligible for ratification. Since nationwide federation permits and IAU labels are a typical incidence, the query is, what occurred on this occasion?
The reply to this query is proving considerably troublesome to acquire, however we’ll spend the remainder of this text exploring what we all know up to now.
Who Really Organized the Race?
An area membership referred to as the Balatonfüredi Atlétikai Membership organized the race, and included the GOMU 48-Hour World Championships inside it. The membership is listed as affiliated with MASZ on its web site. The membership’s web site signifies that they manage many occasions.
The allowing challenge appears to heart across the relationship with the native organizers and MASZ, and a few stipulations for the occasion that the federation was implementing. Mate Baranyai, the native organizing coordinator, when requested for remark, mentioned:
“Nobody is aware of or understands, together with GOMU and the IAU, why the federation has not issued a allow. MASZ didn’t give causes for the rejection. My athletics membership is Balatonfüredi Atlétikai Membership, and the competitors organized by me, for the previous three years, is known as the Balatonfüredi UltraFutó Fesztivál (BUFF). Yearly, we acquired a bronze label from the IAU, and in 2021, it performed the function of the Hungarian 48-Hour [National] Championships.”
He went on, “The affiliation is aware of my membership’s popularity for working glorious competitions that adhere to all IAU and World Athletics guidelines and laws. We couldn’t perceive the delay in sanctioning, so we requested the IAU for assist. This passed off over a number of months, and we’re nonetheless in ongoing negotiations to attempt to resolve it.”
Baranyai continued, “A month earlier than the competitors, GOMU and I informed the athletes that there was no [IAU] label, however they wished to return anyway. It was the most important and strongest 48-hour subject within the sport’s historical past. We had 5 world age group information and Stine Rex’s total, authentic 48-hour file. We organized for her to be drug examined after the occasion as effectively.”
We requested MASZ for remark however haven’t acquired a reply.
What’s GOMU and How Does It Relate to This Story?
Based on the GOMU web site, “The International Group of Multi-Day Ultramarathoning (GOMU) tracks and maintains information for all customary and non-standard multi-day distances/instances for men and women. We manage the GOMU multi-day world championships, the place athletes can contest these information and be impressed to transcend their limits. We embrace the previous to encourage our future.”
Matthieu Bonne and Zsuzsanna Maràz, winners of the 2024 GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships. Picture: GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships
The group’s president is Canadian-born Trishul Cherns, an skilled multi-day runner himself. Talking with iRunFar, he mentioned, “Just a few years in the past, myself and others have been involved that the IAU was not giving sufficient credence to multi-day occasions.”
Though the IAU was organizing and selling what Cherns regards as shorter extremely championships effectively and ratifying information in any respect distances, they didn’t appear keen on selling longer multi-day occasions.
“That’s why GOMU got here into being,” mentioned Cherns, “to assist promote the longer multi-day occasions from 48 hours upward. We have now promoted earlier 48-hour and six-day occasions as world championships. Increasingly more persons are embracing multi-day races, and we really feel that’s the manner ahead, to lift the profile and enhance participation for all and enhance requirements on the elite finish.”
Requested in regards to the points with not having a allow for an occasion billed as a world championships, he mentioned, “All of the athletes have been made conscious of the labeling scenario 4 weeks earlier than the race. We informed them every thing else was in place, however we have been open and clear that we didn’t but have an IAU label. The athletes nonetheless wished to return, as they valued competing in opposition to one another…”
Cherns continued, “The suggestions I get from runners after the race is incredible. They’re telling us, ‘So long as you guys ratify it, if GOMU ratifies any information and lists them within the GOMU-approved, multi-day information, that’s all effective with us.’ We placed on the best 48-hour race ever, with some incredible performances, and the athletes clearly need the sort of competitors with one another.”
As beforehand talked about, this occasion arguably supplied probably the most aggressive 48-hour race ever seen. GOMU’s imaginative and prescient to offer that have for the runners can also be not unsure. Nevertheless, that also doesn’t reply the query of why the IAU might not ratify the file.
When requested what he has to say to some skilled extremely observers, who admit that GOMU has good concepts and intentions and that their hearts are in the precise place, however that possibly they need to be a bit extra affected person and permit an extended lead time into occasions to keep away from a repetition of the problems skilled in Hungary, he responded:
“We had the persistence of Job on this one. The method of working with MASZ, with the IAU’s help, began in November 2023 and dragged on till days earlier than the [event], which was held on the finish of Could/early June.”
He continued, “Our lead time was seven months, and it shouldn’t be seen as an indication of impatience or that we weren’t permitting an extended lead time, as others have steered. MASZ … is the get together that induced delays by stringing [the local organizing coordinator] Mr. Barayani alongside and requesting greater than the IAU’s standards, which stumped us all.”
Cherns added, “The athletes need these races, so we’re going to maintain staging them.”
Since our dialog, GOMU has efficiently staged the 2024 GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships in September in Hungary, which did have an IAU silver label, the place Mathieu Bonne set a brand new males’s six-day file. GOMU additionally has a 2025 six-day world championships in France subsequent April.
Matthieu Bonne on his technique to setting a males’s six-day world file on the 2024 GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships. Picture: GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships
“We have now additionally simply agreed to stage the following GOMU 48-hour world championships in Poland on the [UltraPark Weekend 48 Hour] on the weekend of April 30 to Could 1, 2025,” Cherns added, “and the first-ever 72-hour world championships subsequent September, once more with the Balatonfüredi organizers [in Hungary].”
Are the GOMU World Championships Real Championships?
So, are the GOMU world championships real championships occasions? That is determined by the place you might be coming from. IAU championships occasions have World Athletics and nationwide federation backing. GOMU doesn’t. That mentioned, it appears obvious that the IAU, on this case, has been making an attempt to assist GOMU with the labeling challenge as greatest they will.
At current, GOMU doesn’t have hyperlinks with nationwide federations providing invites to ship groups, as occurs with the IAU 24-Hour World Championships, IAU 100k World Championships, and the World Athletics-supported World Mountain and Path Working Championships.
GOMU has a bidding course of in place to host its world championship occasions. Bids are open yearly from November 1 till March 31 of the next yr. For instance, functions to host its world championships occasions in 2026 will open in November 2024 and shut on March 31, 2025. The GOMU organizing committee evaluations every utility and votes on the most effective venue.
At present, the way in which it appears to work is that athletes simply enter the races as regular and kind their very own groups, with no backing or choice standards laid down or assist given by their nationwide federations.
Cherns says, “The athletes who come to our GOMU world championships are usually not chosen by the nationwide federations, regardless of our efforts to provoke a dialogue [with the various national federations] … Right now, GOMU chooses to supply self-selected open races that cater to our strong international multi-day household of athletes, hungry for recognition and inclusion. This technique additionally accommodates elite age-group athletes unlikely to be chosen for a federation-selected nationwide crew.”
Though Cherns says GOMU has reached out to a number of nationwide federations to assist its world championships occasions, he has not been met with any tangible response up to now, making these 48-hour and six-day championships arguably championships of their title solely, though valued by the collaborating athletes.
Runners Beware and Plan When Aiming for Information
In some methods, Rex’s scenario will not be distinctive. Two current examples come to thoughts. As talked about earlier than, in 2024, the French athlete Brumelot surpassed the present ladies’s 100k European file and have become solely the second lady to interrupt seven hours, working 6:56:54. The occasion at which she raced didn’t have a French federation or IAU allow, so the time was unable to be ratified for file functions.
Nice Britain’s Sarah Webster additionally had a ladies’s 100k European file unable to be ratified however for a barely totally different purpose. In March 2023, she ran her first 100k on the 100k British Nationwide Championships in Northern Eire. Surpassing most individuals’s expectations, together with the organizers, she ran 7:03:40. This was inside the present ladies’s 100k European file of seven:04:03, set by French runner Florianne Scorching, when profitable the 2022 IAU 100k World Championships in Germany. On that event, an IAU label and all different technical necessities have been in place, however no drug testing was out there, which means that though her efficiency seems in rankings, it was inadmissible as a European file.
This spring, when working the 100k British Nationwide Championships on the 2024 Sri Chinmoy 100k occasion in Perth, Scotland, the organizers organized for doping management. Webster ran 7:03:48, and now this ladies’s 100k European file ratification is pending. Different examples exist over time, too, and lengthen past ultrarunning.
Sarah Webster (left), alongside Carla Molinaro, and Andrea Pomaranski, when she took third on the 2023 IAU 50k World Championships. Picture courtesy of the IAU.
The message for athletes is evident. Though organizers at all times try to have every thing in place, runners with any likelihood or aspiration to set a file of any variety — nationwide, age group, or world — ought to do some homework to make sure all is in place earlier than committing to an occasion.
The 2024 lululemon FURTHER six-day occasion in California this spring, though in some methods a manufactured, stand-alone occasion, went to meticulous lengths to make sure all was in place beforehand for file ratification. The organizers labored with USA Observe and Discipline to make sure that runners knew any information set may very well be ratified.
Equally, the 2024 GOMU-EMU Six Day World Championships held in Hungary in September 2024, the place Bonne reset the boys’s six-day world file, was sanctioned by MASZ and issued an IAU label.
What Is the Path Ahead?
Sooner or later, as with different main championships, securing and making certain the assist of host nation federations would appear to be the important thing to the credible development and additional recognition of multi-day championships. As with all sport, as occasions and participation develop, governance and steering will at all times be wanted to assist form this in an orderly style.
The truth is that though participation in multi-day working is rising, the participation numbers fall manner wanting the numbers at marathon, 100k, and even 24-hour occasions — not to mention the worldwide explosion in ultra-distance path races and mountain races.
Federations, though sympathetic and sometimes working with very tight budgets throughout the entire range of athletic occasions, will take some persuading that supporting yet one more world championships is a good suggestion. GOMU and others will definitely be striving to current an excellent case. There may be additionally a case for the IAU and GOMU to maybe be a part of forces and work collectively extra concretely towards a sustainable future for the game of ultrarunning.
Stine Rex rests on the end of the 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships. Picture: Zoltan Schmidt and Louise Kjeldmann
Concerning whether or not the IAU will ratify Stine Rex’s file, an IAU spokesperson responded, “The 48-hour occasion at the moment has no IAU label, however we’re nonetheless trying on the scenario. The … EMU six-day race in Hungary has an IAU label pedigree for a minimum of a decade. It’s speaking with MASZ in the intervening time a couple of label for subsequent yr. We collect that MASZ has tightened its necessities for races with a big worldwide part.”
We await information of the continued discussions and can replace this text when extra data turns into out there. MASZ should retroactively sanction the occasion, and the IAU might challenge a label retrospectively, which it has the ability to do. Whereas historical past reveals this hardly ever occurs, it appears a retroactive ratification may be a wonderful determination by the stakeholders. It’s arduous to think about that the game’s management will enable an athlete’s stellar efficiency to be the collateral harm of its failure to work collectively successfully.
The runners are the important folks in all this. They’ll at all times be prepared to push their boundaries and discover new limits. One hopes that, for the runners’ sakes, future occasions won’t throw up the identical challenges that beset the 2024 BUFF/GOMU 48-Hour World Championships.
Name for Feedback
- What are your ideas on this example?
- Do you suppose the file ought to be retroactively ratified?
- What are your concepts for a sustainable way forward for ultrarunning, particularly multi-day ultrarunning?
