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Dame Mary Peters calls on Seb Coe to reject plan to remove pre-2005 records

The 77-year-old still holds the world record for the pentathlon.

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British Olympic great Dame Mary Peters has urged world athletics chief Seb Coe to reject a radical plan to retire records set before 2005.

The proposal, which has already been backed by European Athletics, calls for an overhaul of how governing bodies recognise records.

Peters has called on Coe not to “punish the innocent” by taking away their records.

Sebastian Coe during a press conference at the Olympic Stadium
Seb Coe (Martin Rickett/PA)

The new criteria for ratification would be that records can only be set at major events, athletes must have been drug-tested a minimum number of times in the last year and their samples must be stored for 10 years so they can be retested.

That last measure, however, has provoked fury as the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) only started storing samples in 2005, meaning all records set before then can no longer be recognised.

Current world record-holders such as triple jumper Jonathan Edwards, long jumper Mike Powell and marathon runner Paula Radcliffe have all strongly criticised the idea, as have several other British and international athletes. IAAF president Coe, however, is understood to be supportive of the idea and it is on the agenda for the next meeting of the IAAF Council in London on July 31.

Jonathan Edwards celebrates winning the gold metal at the Sydney Olympics
Jonathan Edwards celebrates winning the gold medal at the Sydney Olympics (Toby Melville/PA)

Peters, who won a gold medal in the pentathlon at the 1972 Olympics, has known Coe for nearly 40 years and was the British athletics team manager at the 1980 Olympics, where the Englishman won the first of his two Olympic 1,500 metres titles.

Speaking at the Sport Resolutions annual conference in London, Peters said: “I hope he’ll listen to people like me and not take away records from those who have earned them. My plea today is not to punish the innocent and take away their records but to get after the cheats.”

Peters, who also won three Commonwealth titles for Northern Ireland during her long career, explained that she had competed against athletes “from the eastern bloc” who she and her coaches thought were cheating and they are now either dead or unwell. The 77-year-old also revealed she still holds the world record for the pentathlon, as it was replaced by the heptathlon in the 1980s.

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