WC results: Men's distance rankings (by country)

Good Analysis

Thanks for doing the work. I've been fighting this battle with the knuckleheads all year. Are the US runners as good as Kenya and Ethiopia? No, but they're better than everyone else. And they're getting better.

Any analysis of the women?

Thank you

the u.s. is definitely not third in distance running. we're a freaking joke.

gobekele wrote:

the u.s. is definitely not third in distance running. we're a freaking joke.

Of course the US is third. We're not a match for the Kenyans and Ethiopians, but that's it, sport.

We were weak in two events: the steeplechase and the marathon. But we were well represented in the 800, the 1500, the 5k and the 10k. (I assume the discussion is on the men.)

More analysis would be interesting if you consider population.

Kenya: 38 million (108)

Ethiopia: 85 million (54)

USA: 307 million (36)

Bahrain: doesn't count

Morocco: 32 million (16)

France: 65 million (12)

108/38=2.8 points per million

54/85=0.6

36/307=0.1

16/32=0.5

12/65=0.2

Yes, we're third. But third is way back of the top two.

Hey Terminator, good analysis. I would agree that the US is clearly the number 3 nation. One thing I was looking at was "top 8" finishes (as that is what scores in most track meets like a state meet or the NCAA as its the number of lanes on a track).

For both men and women combined, the US had 12 top 8 finishes (Symmonds, Lagat (x2), Lomong, Tegenkamp, Ritz, Rupp, Barringer, Yoder-Begley, Rowbury, Wurth-Thomas, Willard)

I believe that last year in Beijing we only had two (Rowbury and Flanagan). I'd be interested to see if the US in the World Championship era has ever had a better showing than 12 top 8 placers. I'd agree that US Distance has aways to go to be with the Africans, however, I think that measuring in terms of top 8's is a good way to go, as if you have enough of those you'll eventually get the medals that everyone wants.

Timmings wrote:

Kenya: 38 million (108)

Ethiopia: 85 million (54)

USA: 307 million (36)

Bahrain: doesn't count

Morocco: 32 million (16)

France: 65 million (12)

108/38=2.8 points per million

54/85=0.6

36/307=0.1

16/32=0.5

12/65=0.2

So, per capita, France is better than the US at distance running?

I'm gonna cry..

Points per capita? Really?

What if Vatican City (pop. 900) had a Kenyan born priest run for them and he scored a point. That would give VC 1,111 points per million of population. Would that make Vatican City the top distance nation in the world?

Blowing.Rock Master wrote:

Points per capita? Really?

What if Vatican City (pop. 900) had a Kenyan born priest run for them and he scored a point. That would give VC 1,111 points per million of population. Would that make Vatican City the top distance nation in the world?

no there are certain limits. Just like in order to have the best average in baseball you need have a certain amount of at bats for the season. So in order for the results to count you would need to have a certain population.

If IAAF events were like NCAA ones, the track events would emphasize performances in the top 8 and the marathon would emphasize ones in the top 25 (NCAA XC all-american is top-35, but that race has 7 people from each team instead of 5 as is true of IAAF marathon).

Instead, in IAAF races 4th or lower is seen as worthless.

Medals are where it's at. As a consequence we overlook performances like Ritz, Symmonds, Begley, Goucher, Davilla, heck even Browne (24th in men's marathon)!

When you actually do the analysis, you see we're not such a joke after all.

I was watching Ritz's interview (before IAAF got all 'big brother' on Wejo/Rojo) and it reminded me a lot of one of my friends who got 5th in the NCAA D3 10k. He had been ranked 9th coming in and didn't PR but ran the race of his life to beat 4 of the guys ahead of him. Afterwards he had a bit of initial disappointment at not getting top 3, but then after cooling down it hit him that he'd gotten 5th and well that was pretty dang good.

At the world level there's all this talk about how America is worthless because we can't get those medals like the Ethiopians and Kenyans. Well yes I would love it too if guys like Ritz and Symmonds were out-kicking the Africans. But dang we really ought to be meeting them at the airport and telling them what a good job they did this week!

Have to admit you Yanks are doing much, much better than us. You now have a very good platform from which to build.