A sprinter from the University of Georgia set a world record at the SEC Indoor Track and Field Championships in Fayetteville on Saturday. Well, kind of.

Christopher Morales Williams, a sophomore sprinter from Canada, won the 400 meters in 44.49 seconds. That was .08 faster than Kerron Clement ran when he set the world record for the indoor 400 meters, also in Fayetteville, in 2005.

World records must be ratified by World Athletics, the governing body over track and field, and this one apparently was not.

World Athletics has strict rules for starting blocks — and everything else — when it comes to records. It seems this is the issue:

For performances up to and including 400m (including 4 × 200m and 4 × 400m) under Rule 32 of the Competition Rules, starting blocks linked to a World Athletics certified Start Information System under Rule 15.3 of the Technical Rules must have been used and have functioned correctly so that reaction times were obtained and are shown on the results of the event. 

The United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association referred to Morales Williams’ run as an “all-time world best” and ranked him as the fastest collegian of all time. Morales Williams, 19, might still get credited with a separate record for athletes under 20 years old, since those records don’t have the same requirements for starting blocks.

In another interesting twist, Morales Williams said he had been throwing up on the morning of the race and was so weak he could barely stand during his warm-up. He said it pushed him “to try a bit harder.”

Morales Williams seems pretty unbothered by the whole fiasco. Here’s what he told a reporter at the University of Georgia:

“It doesn’t change the fact that I still ran the time. It’s still the fastest time in the world, so it really doesn’t bother me at all. It’s not ratified, but it’s still there,” he said. “It really doesn’t make too much of a difference. It doesn’t bother me.”