A Case of Two Records Not Making a Right

Larry Stewart’s column (April 18) about the TV coverage of the Boston Marathon was just about as bad as the coverage itself.

About a third of the column was devoted to criticizing commentator Barbara Bickford, for example, for not knowing what the Boston Marathon women’s record was. He wrote that since Ingrid Kristiansen ran only three seconds slower than the record of “2:24:30, set last year by Rosa Mota,” Bickford should have informed the viewers of the potential record.

The Boston women’s record, however, is 2:22:43 run by Joan Benoit (Samuelson in 1983). Since Bickford was on live TV and admitted she didn’t know the record while Stewart had the time to look the record up and still got it wrong, I think his criticism was unfair.

One point we agree on, however. Bud Collins should stick to tennis.

A.H. STUDENMUND

Pasadena

Editor’s note: Both letter writer Studenmund and Stewart are right. Mota does, indeed, hold the record for the current course, 2:24:30. The course was changed in 1986. Samuelson’s mark of 2:22:43 was set on the old course.