Posted: October 18, 2005

Athletics: Gebrselassie Returns To The World Rankings

Monte Carlo – The main changes in the latest edition of the IAAF World Rankings came in the Road Running and Race Walking departments, although a couple of Chinese athletes posted strong performances on the track as well.

Ethiopia’s Haile Gebrselassie’s ran the fastest time of the year when he won the ING Amsterdam Marathon over the weekend. Gebre’s time of 2:06:20 is worth 1376 points in Performance Score, which allowed the 32-year-old former World and Olympic champion to enter the Men’s Road Running Event Rankings in 3rd place behind Jaouad Gharib and Martin Lel. Japan’s Toshiniari Takaoka formerly lay in second place but dropped out of the Rankings this week for not having enough competitions under his belt during the last 365 days.

The Kenyan, Felix Limo, is on the rise in the Event Rankings. Limo has experienced a bit of a rollercoaster ride in during the past month, as he fell from 4th all the way to 31st, but jumped back into 5th this week after winning the Chicago Marathon. Limo finished in 2:07:02 (1361 points) and is only points away from Fabiano Joseph Naasi and Haile Gebrselassie in the Event Rankings.

In the Women’s Road Running Event Rankings, China’s Chunxiu Zhou overtook Kenya’s Catherine Ndereba for 3rd place after finishing second in the Beijing International Marathon in 2:21:11 (1340 points). The victory went to her compatriot Yingjie Sun (2:21:01 – 1363 points) and both of them completed a unique double competition by taking part in the Nanjing Chinese National Games. Just a day after winning the Marathon Sun finished second in the 10,000m with 31:03.90 (1231 points) and moved up one spot to 20th in the Women’s 5000 – 10 000m Event Rankings, while Chunxiu Zhou placed 3rd in 31:09.03 (1223 points). The 10 000m victory went to Huina Xing in 31:00.73 (1238 points) who thereby entered the Event Rankings in 12th place, well ahead of her main rival Yingjie Sun.

See the full IAAF World Rankings at IAAF.org.