News items from the world of running and track & field...

From the IAAF comes this release backtracking their position from earlier this summer stating that women's world records in road events will not be recognized if it's set in mixed competition, which would have wiped out Paula Radcliffe's (left/photo by Paul Merca) 2003 world record of 2:15:25 set in the London Marathon.

In an AP story posted on espn.com, IAAF council member Helmut Digel said the IAAF was taken aback by the vehemence of the protests, and that the rule wasn't meant to diminish previous performances.

The issue for the IAAF is that Radcliffe ran the London race with male pacemakers, which the governing body says makes for an unfair edge compared to all-women races.

In some other IAAF news, the overall event winners of each of the 32 Diamond Races in the Samsung Diamond League series will now benefit from a wild card into the world championships, with the caveat that only one or the other (the other being the defending world champion) can get the wild card if they're both from the same country (meaning the maximum of four entries remains in effect). However, the national federation has the final say on the entries.

The top 15 finishers in the senior men's and women's races at the world cross country championships will be considered as having achieved the A standard in the track 10000 for that year's world track & field championships…

The IAAF Council is meeting in Monte Carlo this week, with the big announcement in the coming days is which city will get the 2017 world track & field championships, with both London and Doha battling for the berth.

SAVE FEBRUARY 11TH ON YOUR CALENDAR...

Mark down February 11th on your calendar, as that's the date of the Husky Classic at the Dempsey Indoor.

With the NCAA recently releasing the standards for the 2012 championships, which will be held at Boise State University on March 9-10, many teams, especially in the distance events, will make the trek to Seattle for the Husky Classic to chase fast times, given that the NCAA has tightened the standards.

For the men, the qualifying standards in the three distance events--mile, 3000 & 5000 are (banked or over 200m) 3:57.90, 7:52.30, and 13:44.60.

To give you some perspective, only six, seven, and seven athletes in those events ran those times in the 2011 season.

Out of that group, two athletes got their auto qualifiers in the mile at the Husky Classic; in the 3000, it was four; and in the 5000, five achieved the marks in the Dempsey, which, over the summer was redone with a new Mondo surface.

The links to the 2012 NCAA indoor standards for men are available here, and the women's standards are available here.

The 2011 indoor collegiate lists are available here.

By the way, the Huskies are expected to announce in the next day or so their new throws coach.

Finally, one aspect of the ING New York City marathon that has numerous people in the professional ranks upset is the fact that friend of the blog Lauren Fleshman (left/photo by Paul Merca), the seventh place finisher in the world championships 5000 meter final, lost several minutes of warmup time while parts of her body were scrubbed with rubbing alcohol to remove three temporary tattoos promoting her own brand of gluten-free snack bars, Picky Bars.

While celebrity runners like Olympic speed skater Apolo Ohno were allowed to run with shirts promoting Subway, runners in the elite professional field are subject to the IAAF advertising rules on uniform logos, rules which, quite frankly, are designed to protect the race sponsors, and the federation sponsors, and does not allow athletes to go out and promote secondary brands.

Fleshman, who lives in Eugene, finished 16th in a time of 2:37:23, and was the second American woman across the line.