Daily News, Wednesday 9 December 2015

Gordy and the qualifier rule

Gordy Ainsleigh ran the Western States trail on foot for the first time in 1974, which is the founding event of the entire hundred-mile category. He has held an automatic entry to the race ever since — a standing exception for the person who started it.

This year he did not run a qualifying race, which is apparently still a requirement even in his unique situation, and so the automatic entry did not apply. There is a reasonable rule here — qualifiers exist to keep people off a course they are not ready for — colliding with a case the rule was never designed for. Forty-one years in, the sport is still working out how much of itself is procedure and how much is history.

Doug Tompkins

The North Face founder died this week in a kayaking accident in Chile, at 72. A serious loss to the outdoor industry, to conservation, and to his family and friends. As send-offs go, expiring while kayaking in Patagonia surrounded by good company is not the worst version available.

Doping, again

A long and well-argued piece on doping in ultrarunning landed this week, and the conversation it prompted was the usual one: important, sincere and entirely without a next step.

The position taken here is that the discussion needs to convert into something enactable. Step one is not complicated: every race director of consequence announces now that athletes currently serving doping bans are not welcome on their start lines. That requires no testing budget, no governing body and no new infrastructure.

The urgency is not abstract. A high-profile figure with a doping history has been talking publicly about running his first ultramarathon in 2016. Race directors should consider themselves warned: make the policy now, before an entry arrives, and avoid a fight you will otherwise have in public.

Underneath it sits the definitional question nobody has resolved. Does ultrarunning adopt WADA’s list wholesale or write its own? Is cannabis in the same category as EPO? Until that is settled, “clean sport” in this discipline means whatever the person saying it wants it to mean.

Also this morning

• A quick race report from second place at the North Face Endurance Challenge Championships, and a good gallery from the event.
• Gift suggestions for the runner who also likes beer, including a hoodie with a bottle pocket, which is either brilliant or a warning sign.
• How to train for vertical gain when you live somewhere flat — the perennial question, answered better than usual.
• A multi-discipline event in Brazil combining mountain running, surfing, mountain biking and skateboarding, which sounds excellent.
• A farewell column from a departing editor at Running Times, with some pointed remarks about disclosure of sponsored athletes’ earnings.
• With print magazines closing across the sector, ultrarunning.com appears to be adapting to new media without difficulty.
• A multi-day desert stage race for anyone whose season needs more sand.
• A list of five things not to do after a marathon, which is as weak as it sounds.

And happy birthday to one of the sport’s most colourful characters — Errol “Rocket” Jones turns 66 today.