Posted: April 4, 2006

Athletics: Fukuoka Strengthens Bekele’s And Dibaba’s Reign - IAAF World Rankings

Monte-Carlo - Taking a break from its usual off-season fortnightly publication, the IAAF World Rankings are released as a special edition this week due to last weekend’s IAAF World Cross Country Championships in Fukuoka.

Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele completed his 5th double in a row, by winning both the short (1400 points) and the long (1400 points) races over the weekend. Because of the variety of courses and differing weather conditions, which some times are extreme as was the case with the wind on Sunday in Fukuoka – the World Rankings do not calculate the Result Score for Cross Country meets, but use a previously determined scale of Performance Scores - for example 1400 points for the winner- which takes no account of the finish time.

With the double victory, Bekele stretched his lead at the top of the Men’s 5000 – 10,000m Event Ranking (which includes similar events ranging from the 3000m to the World Cross Country Championships). The results from last year’s World Cross Country became out-of-date only a week ago, thereby costing the Ethiopian three points, which he regained this week by defending his titles.

Bekele’s compatriot, Tirunesh Dibaba also increased her lead at the top of her Event Ranking for the very same reason. The 20-year-old comfortably won the women’s long race (1400 points) ahead of Lornah Kiplagat of the Netherlands (1365 points), and is now only 17 points behind Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva at the top of the women’s Overall Ranking.

Full details of the latest changes in the IAAF World Rankings can be found at: IAAF.org.

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