The European/Commonwealth 10,000m champion, Olympic 10,000m bronze medallist and former world 3000m/two miles record-holder on why technology in running should embraced
Brendan Foster, who founded the Great Run Company, has welcomed new technologies within athletics and emphasised that the focus should be on competition and not on breaking records.
In an exclusive interview with Tim Hutchings – part of our brand new Legends Series – the former world 3000m and two miles record-holder explained that “records are there to be broken” and that supershoes are “moving on and advancing the sport”.
Foster, who is well placed to make a judgement on the issue, given he founded the Great North Run in 1981, added that there are more variables to breaking records on the road compared to the track.
“My thing is, I think that it’s fantastic that we’ve got these new shoes and technologies,” he said. “They’re moving on and advancing the sport. They’re running faster and so on and so forth. At the end of the day, we ran on tartan tracks, Roger Bannister ran on ash tracks and before that they ran on crappy ash tracks.
“It’s called life and at the end of the day records are there to be broken. They’ve been broken through time and it also [technology] doesn’t make any difference on occasions. I remember watching George Mills against Jakob Ingebrigtsen and I couldn’t tell you what time they ran.
“You could have a gale force wind blowing behind you in the marathon and you can still break the world record. You can’t do that on the track. The marathon is a different distance and times are much less relevant than you think they are. At the end of the day, if they break the record, great, and if they don’t break the record, fine you’ve won the race.
“It’s intrinsically competition and it’s about finding the best person on the day. The courses, shoes, twists and turns, wind and rain and the uphills and downhills are all irrelevant.”
Foster, in the episode, also recalls his world 3000m record at his home track in Gateshead back in 1974 – one of the three most satisfying races of the 77-year-old’s career.
Famously Foster, who had already broken the world two miles record at Crystal Palace a year beforehand, stated that if Gateshead laid down a new surface – to replace the ash track – then he’d try and break Emiel Puttemans’ world 3000m record of 7:37.6 from 1972.
Not only did Foster, in front of tens of thousands of partisan fans, better that time but he took over two seconds off it, clocking 7:35.2 in Gateshead. The Brit’s world record was that good that it lasted for four years, when Henry Rono ran 7:32.1 in Oslo in 1978.
“I remember saying that ‘I hear the council is going to build a new track and if you do then I’ll come down there and break the world record’,” he told Hutchings. “I kept training and I still had at the back of my head that I’d told them I’d break the world record. It was a stupid thing to do!
“Fortunately, I was running well and Mike Baxter, who was an old training mate of mine, paced the first 1500m. The place was packed and I managed to break the world record. It was a foolish thing to say [I’d break the world record] but you remember it forever. It was a very good mark of 7:37.6. I remember thinking ‘christ’. It was one of my best races physically and the story behind it was probably more interesting than the actual race.”
Click here to watch the full Tim Hutchings interview with Brendan Foster
