Posted: January 17, 2006

Athletics: Gebrselassie Joins Gharib At Top Of Road Running - Latest IAAF World Rankings

Haile Gebrselassie wins the P.F. Chang's Rock 'n' Roll Arizona Half-Marathon in Phoenix in a World record (Elite Racing)

Monte-Carlo - The second edition of the IAAF World Rankings in 2006 sees the first new Event Ranking leader of the year. Ethiopian Haile Gebrselassie moved-up to tie for first place with reigning double World Marathon champion Jaouad Gharib of Morocco in the Road Running category.

Gebrselassie set a half marathon World record when he won the Rock 'n' Roll Arizona race on Sunday (15 Jan). The 32-year-old former World and Olympic 10,000m champion finished in 58:55, and with the World record bonus earned 1335 points. His average is now 1330 points, which is exactly the same as Gharib. The Ethiopian moved up from 3rd place in the Event Ranking, overtaking Kenya's Martin Lel in the process. In the Men's Overall Ranking, Gebrselassie jumped from 90th place to 50th.

American Brian Sell won the USA Half Marathon Championships on 15 January in Houston, Texas. Sell finished in 1:02:39 (1172 points) and moved up from 78th to 51st in the Event Ranking.

Daniel Rono of Kenya, 33, also increased his tally of victories since the latest edition of the IAAF World Rankings, winning the Mumbai Marathon in India, with 2:12:03 (1158 points), re-entering the Ranking in 55th place.

On the women's side, Olga Zaytseva moved up five places to 15th in the 400m Event Ranking after finishing second in the 500m indoor race in Yekaterinburg, Russia in 1:06.95 (1248 points).

In the Women's Marathon Road Running Event Ranking, Japan's Kiyoko Shimahara moved up from 90th to 57th place, after finishing 7th in the Miyazaki Half Marathon in 1:10:16 (1167 points).

On-line Ranking Scores now available for top-50 in each Event

The first significant new measure introduced to the IAAF World Rankings in 2006 is the availability of the on-line Ranking Scores for the top 50 athletes in each Event Ranking. Until this week, only the top 20 athletes in each event could be clicked on to retrieve the data used to calculate their score, but from this week on, the top 50 athletes are available.

IAAF.org.

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