The 500 meter national record record set by Najee Glass of St. Peter’s Prep (N.J.) will not count, according to the a committee that keeps such records. Glass was clocked at 1:02.22 Saturday at the New Balance Games. He was not disqualified, despite a protest filed by Christopher Columbus coach Michael Pearson, who claimed that Glass had run outside of his assigned lane.
Video later revealed that Glass did, in fact, run out of his lane, although the video, including the Armory’s webcast of the competition, is not reviewable for the purposes of a protest. It was, however, used by the record committee.
“The 1:02.22 by Najee Glass will not be recognized by T&FN (Track and Field News) as a HS record nor will the mark be carried on any of our lists,” said Jack Shepard, who keeps the official all-time best lists for high school performances. “Since the video indicated Najee ran inside his lane on the curves on more than one occasion during the first lap, we are negating the mark as a record. And since he ran inside is lane, he did not run the full 500-meter distance, so the mark will not be carried on the 500m list. It is certainly an unfortunate occurrence and we hope that Najee will have some other opportunities to go after this record.”
The national record remains 1:02.40 set by Mike Greene of Boston College High set in 1984. Strymar Livingston of Columbus, who finished second in the race in a New York State record time of 1:02.88, will now move up to third all-time on the national list.
Here is the orginal post from Sunday, Jan. 23 by Tim Fulton:
There have been some questions regarding Najee Glass's time at The New Balance Games. Some reports had him running inside the line. With this in mind please see below.
National Federation High School Rule 3 Section 3 Article 7