Posted: July 13, 2004

Athletics: China And Korea Are Added To The ARRS National Rankings

Last minute changes as runners begin their preparations for Athens

With the Olympics fast approaching, it has been decided to add two further countries to those whose national rankings are tracked on a weekly basis. China and Korea both have strong credentials, with China being particularly strong in women's distance.

Major moves since the last rankings.
Salim Jawher (BRN) is continuing his late surge in the rankings with his performance in the Swiss Athletissma 5000m. Mulugeta Wondimu (ETH) also made progress through this event.

There was some late movement in the Women's World rankings as a result of the Znamensky Memorial 3000m from Elena Zadorozhnaya and Lidia Grigoryeva of Russia.

Other major moves include
Michael Donnelly (OR/USA) and Christopher Graff (CA/USA) improved markedly as a result of their performances in the USA Olympic Trials at 10 000m. Christopher Thompson (ENG) and Ismail Sghyr (FRA) also made progress in the Athletissma 5000m.

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

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%.

These will be the last rankings sent out before the Olympics as runners will now be fine tuning their preparations and movement will become increasinly minimal.

However the rankings will still be 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 below.

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 - www.arrs.net/. Further information about ARRS itself is available on that website in numerous languages.