The World Athletics Rankings are an individual athlete ranking system for the sport of athletics, managed by World Athletics. It is used to establish the number one athlete within an athletics event and to partially determine qualification into the World Athletics Championships and the athletics at the Summer Olympics. The rankings are published weekly by World Athletics on Wednesday.[1] WA President Sebastian Coe said the goal of this system is so athletes and fans "have a clear understanding of the hierarchy of competitions from national through to area and up to global events, allowing them to follow a logical season-long path to the pinnacle of athletics' top two competitions".[2]
Based on the work of the late Dr. Bojidar Spiriev and his son Attila, elite athletes are assigned a "ranking score" based on the average of their best performances within a 12-month ranking period, or 18-month period for combined events and distance events of 10,000 m or more. Each athlete performance is assigned a "performance score" which consists of a "result score" plus a "placing score" – the result score is based upon an athlete's best result in the final of a competition and is calculated via the World Athletics Scoring Tables of Athletics (similar to the decathlon scoring method), while the placing score takes into account the athlete's final placing within that competition and the category of the competition, with more placing points being awarded in more prestigious and competitive competitions. Some additional modifications may be made to a performance score to account for wind and course conditions, or the date of the performance. A world record bonus score may be added directly to the athlete's ranking score where an athlete has equalled or broken a world record within the ranking period. The exact scoring rules vary by event, being broadly categorised as track and field, combined track and field events, road running or racewalking.[3]
They were announced in November 2017 and were originally intended to determine qualification for the 2019 World Athletics Championships,[4] but after initial pushback the IAAF announced in November 2018 that it would run the rankings system in 2019 as a dry run without affecting qualification for the 2019 World Championships.[5][6] The system was used to determine qualification for the 2020 Summer Olympics.[7] A similar ranking system was introduced in 2003 as part of the IAAF World Outdoor Meetings series, though these rankings were only used for qualification to the season-ending IAAF World Athletics Final rather than entry to international competitions.[8]
- ^ "IAAF launches new world rankings system". Athletics Weekly. 26 February 2019.
- ^ IAAF launch official world rankings system for 2019 trial - Mike Rowbottom, Inside the Games, 27 February 2019
- ^ 1. Basics of the World Rankings. IAAF. Retrieved 2019-10-02.
- ^ "IAAF to introduce world rankings as qualification route to major champs". Athletics Weekly. 3 November 2017.
- ^ "IAAF Walks Back 'World Rankings,' Restores Usual Qualifying System For 2019". FloTrack. 11 November 2018.
- ^ Gene Cherry (11 November 2018). "IAAF reverts to qualifying standards for Doha championships". Reuters.
- ^ Madeleine Kelly (4 March 2019). "What is the IAAF world ranking system and why does it matter?". Canadian Running.
- ^ World Athletics Final – a new concept based on a tradition of quality. IAAF (2003-07-18). Retrieved 2019-10-01.