Posted: July 7, 2004

Athletics: Eliud Kipchoge (Ken) Takes Over Second Place in ARRS Rankings With Win In Italian Golden Gala 5000 Metres

Dejene Birhanu (Eth) And Martin Lel (Ken) Move Up; Big moves by Richard Limo (KEN), Salim Jawher (BRN) and Abderrahim Goumri (MAR).
Ejagayou Dibaba (Eth) Makes Also Major Move With Win In Italian 5000 Metres

The headlines say it all for the World rankings, as athletes begin to peak for the Olympics. Most of the improvements came as a result of the Golden Gala 5000m, but Martin Lel's came from his win in the Peachtree Road 10km

The ARRS rankings are not about the easy questions like - who are the leading runners, male and female ? - but more complex questions like - how do other runners rank in relation to the leaders?

The Olympic distance titles can be a lottery as we know. A fall, an injury, difficult climate conditions can make all the difference. Therefore no one is going to put medals round the necks of Paula Radcliffe and Kenenisa Bekele at the opening ceremony. There will be other runners in the races. The rankings give the reader an opportunity to assess current form, to see who is moving up, who are the major threats?

Major moves since the last rankings.

Tsuyoshi Ogata and Toshinari Takaoka JPN with their performances in the Hokuren Distance 10000m and their fellow Japanese Atsushi Fujita and Kazuo Ietani in the Sapporo HfMar.

Other major moves include Igor Heletiy UKR in the Ukrainian 5000m championships, Beatriz Ros ESP in the Spanish HfMar championships and Colleen deReuck USA for her run in the Peachtree.

These competitive rankings [which are attached] are based on a point exchange system, i.e. if Runner A beats Runner B, Runner A takes points from Runner B. Runner A could beat Runner B by one second or one minute, it makes no difference. All that counts is that Runner A beat Runner B.

For further details of the point exchange system, please see the ARRS website @ http://www.arrs.net.

The point exchange system is designed to respond fairly rapidly to changes in a runner's fitness level so that performances more than a year old generally have little influence on a runner's current point level.

The second column provides the relative frequency of road (R), track (T), or crosscountry (C) races for that runner with the first letter indicating the venue most frequently raced (over the past 12 months).

A lower case letter in the first position indicates that fewer than 50% of the performances were of that type; in the second position, it is less than 30%, and in the third position, it is less than 10%.

The rankings will be released weekly over the next few weeks as the Olympics draws closer. They are normally available on a weekly basis by subscribing to the Analytical Distance Runner [ARRS newsletter](contact Ken Young at kcy@inreach.com ) or by becoming a member of the Association of Road Racing Statisticians (contact Andy Milroy at AndyMilroy@blueyonder.co.uk)

The current top ten listings for the major distance running nations are also shown.

Feedback is requested on these ARRS listings. Are they confusing or are they easy to understand? Do they provide useful or interesting information? AndyMilroy@blueyonder.co.uk.

Further information about ARRS and its detailed road, track and cross country racing statistics can be found on our website - http://www.arrs.net. Further information about ARRS itself is available on that website in numerous languages.