2008’s No. 1 World Rankers

[Marlow]

Reminds me of the time Cantwell got injured half-way thru the season, didn't contend the main brunt of the Euro season and still ended up #1. No way.

Nice analysis... too bad it's not based on fact.
Cantwell finished 4th at the OT and simply didn't throw again. No injury that I know of.

I quote from your current mPV rankings:

Hooker did almost everything. He joined the elite 6-meter club, won a GL title, and captured Oly Gold (with an OR height). What he didn't do, in the final analysis, was compete in enough major Euro meets.

So CC finished 4th at the biggest outdoor meet he was in that year, and then quit and then ranked #1. As Texas would say - Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

[Marlow]

until all the paying customers get a chance to read their mailed issues.

Got mine today when I got back in town from a cross-state trip. T'anks!!

[gm]

Smoke, I understand what you're saying, but it would be hard to include "shoulda, coulda, woulda" in any meaningful way in rankings.

[gh]

Are the 10-deep event-by-event rankings available on-line, or will they be soon - Garry?

eTN subscribers got them a few days ago..... as for everyone else, you have to wait for a few weeks, until all the paying customers get a chance to read their mailed issues. We can only give so much product away.

[Flumpy]

•Because he won the year's No. 2 meet, the World Indoor

Do you include the WI's in your rankings?

If so how do you justify ranking Phillips 2nd in the TJ?

[kuha]

I've said it before, but to me the WAF is just about meaningless--far less significant than the results of a ("normal") Zurich or Brussels, for example. I never expect the earliest-season meets nor the very last meets of a season to tell me anything terribly significant about the year. Sometimes they do, but--really--not that often compared to what happens in July and August...

[Smoke]

The issue with weighting WAF is its artificial nature and to a bigger degree, the time of the year.
It is a strange thing, the athletes run all summer for money but something about WAF is uninspiring. Most are tired and careless about competing, just getting money. So you see a lot of champions under perform. Generally, we have those that have faltered running well at WAF because they have something to prove and pretty much know it is easy money for them to collect.
So when rankings come out using WAF as a significant factor on the season it is frustrating to athletes.

My personal opinion about track rankings is there is a lack of sunstance at times to the rankings. Those wonderful story lines that makes up the season, and the drama at majors disappear at times. Not all the time, but I have seen it enough to surmise that too many rankers are not following the sport or at least not doing their due diligence.
That being said I do greatly appreciate the time and effort it takes to get all of this done. To rank every event 1 to 10 is a monumental feat. Thanks guys.
Yet as the immortal Super Chicken said, "You knew the job was dangerous when you took it." I venture to say that like all of track it is time to evolve. There needs to be more than one body of rankers. Break it up. Distance, sprints, jumps and throws, etc. (And I am not just talking about TFN). This way we develop a true panel of experts. They know what the specific stories were, who was hurt and when, what race was really hot, despite the times, etc.
Just a thought on something I wait so anxiously for every year. LOL

[tandfman]

As for your "artificially significant, end of season dollar beanfeast," lament, I realize that some still yearn for a return to the British mores of the last century (oops, that was two centuries ago, never mind) we are talking about professional athletes here. This is what they do for a living. And we rate them on their full body of work.

And I would think that in the professional environment that we have, the WAF should count more than the other meets on the summer tour simply because the prize money is much greater and so the meet means more to the athletes themselves.

[gh]

So this suggests to me that in the future TFN will rate this IAAF sanctioned, artificially significant, end of season dollar beanfeast, which seldom bears any relation to the Championship events for that year ,but has now acquired an importance that flatters it's existence, exaggerating it's position in the accepted hierarchy of the sport and placing it far closer in relevance to the challenge of winning Gold Medals than it traditionally has a right to have? Sorry, but thats not the way i want the sport to go.

If Nikolai or Nadia no-name avoid injuries in tennis and somehow win the end of season Masters events in the absence of the world's top players do they get the plaudits that are usually bestowed on those players who have the class to win the majors? Do they heck as like!
If this is the case then watch out for a new breed of athlete, one who will pick up some early season points in the first GP meets, then recieve an injury which leads to them avoiding that summer's Championships [and subsequent testing] only to re-appear in the last few weeks of a season to mop up the readies. The WAF point system is just made for athletes like these and rewards them, rather than the ones we used to admire most of all, the ones who won the big Championships.

What can I say, other than you've twisted reality.

Unlike the IAAF's old computer-generated Rankings, which gave value to all events in a meet based on just what the name of the meet was, the T&FN ones (and, I'd venture to say, AI as well) take into account the caliber of competition. Men's LJ, for example, meant almost nothing at WAF, missing as it was the Beijing top-enders.

There's also a tendency, methinks, for those who are non-sprint track-centered (which I think is a significant number of people who pass by here) to equate "tactical" races (read, slow) that don't have rabbits to somehow be meaningless when clearly they're not.

As for your "artificially significant, end of season dollar beanfeast," lament, I realize that some still yearn for a return to the British mores of the last century (oops, that was two centuries ago, never mind) we are talking about professional athletes here. This is what they do for a living. And we rate them on their full body of work.

If you want to call some events "artificially significant" how about an Olympic steeplechase that is restricted to 3 Kenyans?

[LopenUupunut]

In my opinion, the WAF does have a certain importance rankingwise and evaluationwise, paradoxically because of the many withdrawals of top athletes. There are plenty of supposedly second-tier athletes from countries where fast tracks, good weather and strong competition spurring you to give your all are much harder to come by than in, say, the US - and since they're supposedly second-tier and as a result of the above-mentioned largely inadequate conditions only have second-tier marks to show, they seldom get invited to the strong meets abroad where better conditions and competition could be found. Logically it follows that every year, some of these will turn out to actually be first-tier athletes formerly unspotted due to lack of both good-sounding performances and impressive victories. For such people the few opportunities they do get to try and prove theirselves on equal footing with known first-tier athletes should carry lots of weight. Of course the number one opportunity is the international major - this year the OG - and as every time several athletes, most notably Trafton (marks from western US don't count in the discus) and Jarso exploited that window very well indeed. But WAF provides a very valuable number two opportunity, and if those supposedly second-tier athletes get a good performance or placing in there, it shouldn't be shrugged off as "lucky" or "without back-up."

[sprintblox]

I don't know why they even bother staging the WAF in an Olympic year.

[AthleticsInBritain]

Do they heck as like?

What the hell is that?

It's an English expression that ranks somewhere between "yeah right" and "do they f***".

Rankings are a mystery to me, but as in tennis, I would expect the championships to give you the most points, followed by the Golden League level meetings to give most benefit. The WAF is an embarrassing irrelevance IM(NV)HO!

[sprintblox]

Are the 10-deep event-by-event rankings available on-line, or will they be soon - Garry?

They're available now if you're a subscriber. I got it.

[REngelhardt]

Are the 10-deep event-by-event rankings available on-line, or will they be soon - Garry?

[bambam]

Do they heck as like?

What the hell is that?