The Week of January 23, 2023

Photo of Karissa Schweizer by Pierce Townsend (@piercetownsend).

2023 Flash Photo of the Year. Competition!

From the Trackland(ia) Rules and Regulations Department.

Committee of Ways and Means

Researched by Intern 47

Points!

As in World Athletics points. They show up next to an athlete’s name on the world rankings lists, but how do they get there? And what value do they bring? Points are accumulated whenever an athlete achieves any kind of mark at any meet, but performances are worth more if they are achieved in World Athletics tiered competitions such as Gold, Silver and Bronze level meets, and the major championships- the Olympic Games and World Championships. These points contribute to an athlete’s world ranking, which can be a deciding factor in their ability to compete in major Championships. Getting in off of ranking in an event on the world list has been a backdoor entry into the World Championships but it may become more of the norm given the lofty auto qualifying standards recently released by WA. The coveted standards have long acted as the guardians at the gates to major championships for some countries and barriers for entry into the governing body’s selection process in others, like a talisman flashed at the door of the underground poker room of high stakes racing.

The 2024 Olympic qualifying standards released by WA sliced 1.5 seconds from the men’s 1500m and nearly 2 seconds from the women’s 2020 standard in the same event . All other events show a similar trend (see exhibit A).

Exhibit A courtesy of Olympics.com

These drops are not out of line with the drop in time standards from 2016 to 2020, but the perceived goal of this action by the powers that be is to push the top athletes in the sport to race more during the regular season, in the meets leading up to the yearly or every 4 yearly championships. If the standards are just out of reach, the best will either continue to make more attempts at them, or wear a more beaten path through the backdoor, accumulating points and qualifying on rankings, as the fields will continue to be filled past the auto qualifiers (up to 3 per country) to reach the championship field size cap. The 1500m field for the 2023 World Championship in Budapest will be 56 athletes. In 2022, the number of men in the world who ran under 3:33.50 for 1500m was 17. The number of women who ran under the new standard of 4:02.50 was 29. These times are the 2024 Olympics standards, not the 2023 World Championships standards, but the numbers are to give you an idea of how the fields might be shaped up in the future (2023 Budapest qualifying standards + detailed info here). The rankings qualifying route places more of an emphasis on winning and placing within races in any given meet instead of simply achieving a time regardless of place. It is the opinion of many in the Tracklandia offices that this would bring more attention to regular season racing, as observers of any sport or game prefer to watch a competition where the competitors care about whether they win or lose.

It is common knowledge that we here at Tracklandia love racing in the purest sense of the word, the spirit of the term if you will. We romanticize it ad nauseum, and while we enjoy a set-up time trial here and there, we feel that the sport chaining itself to the pursuit of records from week to week dulls the display of personalities and skills of individuals playing a game on the track and dampens the competitive drama of head to head matchups and real old-fashioned, roll your sleeves up racing. Time trials should be occasional treats that display pure fitness and physical ability, but times are much more impressive when they are reached in order to defeat an opponent, an effort as a part of the game.

Consider the following a brief instructional on the point-getting process. For the sake of keeping our language uniform, let’s just keep this article focused on running at the moment, sorry field events. If you’re a jumper or thrower, just substitute the word ‘racing’ for ‘competing’ and the word ‘time’ for ‘mark’.

We can all agree that in our beautiful sport of racing, the two most important factors are time (result) and place. It is not by coincidence that World Athletics combines these two things when calculating a total point score for an athlete’s performance.

RESULT SCORE + PLACING SCORE = PERFORMANCE SCORE

Take Jake Wightman’s Performance score in the 1500m at the 2022 World Championships for example:

Result Score for 3:29.23 = 1256 (WA Result Score Tables). Placing first at the World Championships gives you a placing score of 375 points.

1256 + 375 = 1631 total points.

You could look at those points and say to yourself: “that is what it took to be world champion in the 1500m in the year 2022”. Adding up his 5 best performance scores of every 1500m race that Wightman ran during the 12 month ranking period (includes every recognized distance between 1500m and 2000m) and averaging them out gives you Wightman’s 2022 performance score, which is what ultimately decides his world ranking position. In 2022, the batting average for the World Champ was 1403, behind top ranked Jakob Ingebrigtsen’s 1493 score and second ranked Abel Kipsang’s 1405… nail biter there. If Wightman had run a couple tenths faster in the World Champs Final, he would have picked up 3 more points and gotten the edge over Kipsang. Should have been thinking about that off the Bowerman Curve. C’est La Vie.

As I referred to earlier in this instructional pamphlet, there are different tiers of World Athletics recognized meets that offer different amounts of placing points. As stated, a win at the outdoor World Championships will earn the victor 375 points in addition to their result score. A win in a Gold Level outdoor meet garners 140 points. A win at a silver level meet nets 100 points. An 8th place finish in a bronze level meet gets 25 points (just look at Exhibit B).

Exhibit B courtesy of World Athletics

OW = Olympics & World Champs

DF = Diamond League Final

GW = WIC, WXC Champs, DL Meets

GL = Area Champs

A = WA Gold Level

B = WA Silver Level

C = WA Bronze Level … For a comprehensive breakdown, click on the Rules.

So, going off of the WA results scores, a 3:30 indoor 1500m run at a set up time trial with no WA tier status is worth 1301 points, the same amount of points that a 3:36.89 win at the silver level Lilac Grand Prix is worth. We like this! We like it because it incentivizes athletes to jump into races where they’ll run into other big names who are trying to get those points, thus giving us more interesting match-ups and more head to head competition. Who’s to say a 3:30 can’t be achieved at Lilac, where that win would get 1401 points!

One of the finer details in the World Athletics points manifesto is that if an athlete doesn’t have 5 performances to their name in a year, they are not eligible for a world ranking. That number varies by event group (longer distances require less racing), but 5 is the bar that the biggest names in sport and everyone else has to clear, as in you can count on one hand the amount of times we might get to see the very best in the sport compete on a yearly basis, and it could be any level of race, from scratched together time trial to the Diamond League meeting in the sparkling Stade Louis II. This low barrier obviously decreases the chances we get to see the best line up against the other best, and with an out like an auto Q up for grabs, they never really have to race other really good athletes until they meet in the big dance. Imagine if NBA players only had to play 5 games per year against high school and college athletes. That would not be a very valuable product. I guarantee franchises wouldn’t be worth 7 billion dollars. I bet there are many NBA players who would like to be able to save their knees and be rested and ready for 5 competitions, but that’s not the game and that’s not the sport. They have to get out there and ball out on the reg if they want a shot at the ‘ship and we get to tune in nightly to follow their journey.

The sport we’ve constructed is one where the championships are intoxicating, but the regular season carries little value in its current makeup, to the point where it is a requirement to step to the line only a handful of times, and winning and losing in these outings is not entirely what determines a berth in the Championship because it can be trumped by hitting an automatic qualifying standard, an achievement that for us as fans takes the brightest stars out of the spotlight for most of the year. There is a reason 20x the amount of people tune in for the US Trials over a regular season pro meet- the stakes are high. Athletes move on or they don’t. There are real consequences for what they do in the race. Stringing this mentality throughout the season by giving each meet meaning beyond securing a way out of racing until the championship would bring more drama and intrigue for fans.

The points system is one that attempts to give more meaning to regular season racing, and I have to say, if we want the stars to race more and to have their efforts really count for something, we’ve gotta do what Portland Track Treasurer, and known smart guy, Scotty Olberding says and do away with the auto qualifiers altogether. Let’s just go off of points, baby.  You have to keep lining up (within reason) and racking up wins in order to earn the opportunity to compete for the crown.

For Brand. For Country. For Fans. For the love of the game. For Kevin Costner.

Finer points to these rankings can be found here: WA Rankings Rules.

World Athletics Results Scoring Tables found here