Posted: March 1, 2005

Athletics: Running Times Rates 2004 Marathons & Marathoners

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

The April, 2005 issue of Running Times magazine, which subscribers of the Connecticut-based running magazine received last week, rates the most competitive marathons and marathoners of 2004.

The BAA Boston Marathon had the most competitive men's field, according to the magazine's analysis performed by Ken Young of the Association of Road Race Statisticians (http://www.arrs.net). Rounding out the top-5 were Flora London, the Olympic Games, LaSalle Bank Chicago and ING New York City.

The ING New York City Marathon had the most competitive women's field, followed by the Olympic Games, Flora London, Tokyo Women's, and LaSalle Bank Chicago.

In their rankings of individual marathoners, Kenyan Evans Rutto was the highest ranked man, while Briton Paula Radcliffe was the top-ranked woman. Rutto, who won both London and Chicago with fast times, was also the magazine's highest ranked marathoner of 2003. Radcliffe moved to the #1 position in 2004 from #2 last year, despite dropping out of the Olympic Marathon (she later won at New York). Kenya's Olympic silver medalist, Catherine Ndereba, slipped to #2 in 2004 from her #1 ranking last year.

Olympic champions, Stefano Baldini of Italy and Mizuki Noguchi of Japan, were ranked fourth and third, respectively.

Not surprisingly, Meb Keflezighi and Deena Kastor were the top-ranked U.S. marathoners of 2004. The two Olympic Medalists were ranked #5 and #9, respectively, in the magazine's global rankings.

According to the editors, the rankings relied primarily on head-to-head competition to determine the lists, but also factored in finish times to credit athletes who ran fast, but who did not face strong competition.

The 2004 rankings are not yet available online, but the 2003 rankings --and 2005 weekly road racer rankings-- are available at http://www.runningtimes.com. The magazine is available on newsstands or by contacting the magazine at http://www.runningtimes.com/contact/rtedstaff.htm.

NOTE: The #2-ranked man was listed as "Robert Chebor" of Kenya (2nd at Boston and 1st at Amsterdam). Please note that the correct name of that athlete is "Robert Cheboror," who is managed by Global Sports Communications --Ed.