World Records Ranked by World Athletics Points

Queen Koch's ridiculous 400m WR should be way higher.

I got as far as Mondo. His record is 6.26m 1335 points.

I think Gideys half marathon record should be higher up that list, it’s a minute faster than any other female…

These lists are scrambled eggs.

Sad. Nearly all the women's records held by dopers. Eastern bloc, Chinese, Kersee, athletes on the leaked USADA report.

Kind of surprised by some of these, like Rudisha's 800m record being so low. Did all the fast times this year devalue it?

The times this year have no influence on the Jan 2022 edition of the World Athletics scoring tables.

I find it interesting, but seems so arbitrary. Is it systematic in some way (records that are more % better than the 2nd best performance rated higher?) ?

It is completely arbitrary and has no bearing on anything.

Men's Discus above a 2:00 Marathon
Men's Decathlon ahead of a 12:35 or 1:40.9
Men's Hammer ahead of a 26:11
Men 57:31 almost bottom of the list
Men's Mile which has been untouched for so many years, near the bottom
Women's 1500m is mid-table
Chebet's 28:54 is barely Top 10
Gidey's 62:52 in the bottom quarter

Whoever made this point scoring was clearly a field athlete. These lists are mental.

It's not arbitrary.. the points are based on a statistical model of all performances around the world.

For the most part, I think the points tables get it right. Just comparing the top performances in each event is just that, only comparing two data points. When comparing points further down the performance lists, they all make a lot more sense.

I don't think the world records on field events are overrated. People just don't get how great some of them actually are. For the most part, track events score higher than field events when you go down the world leader lists, and appropriately so, as there is some fact to the myth that field events are less deep than track events.

Ranked #10 performances of the year (10th fastest in each event this year):

Men's:

100m - 1255 (9.86)

800m - 1253 (1:42.43)

10k - 1248 (26:46.39)

Marathon - 1247 (2:04:50)

400m hurdles - 1246 (47.72)

400m - 1240 (44.15)

5k - 1239 (12:51.94)

110m hurdles - 1237 (13.09)

200m - 1236 (19.90)

1500m - 1235 (3:30.65)

PV - 1231 (5.87m)

SP - 1228 (21.80m)

Discus - 1226 (68.99m)

3k steeple - 1219 (8:08.45)

Half Marathon - 1206 (59:30)

TJ - 1201 (17.34m)

LJ - 1199 (8.28m)

Hammer - 1191 (79.25)

HJ - 1188 (2.31m)

Javelin - 1185 (85.91)

Nothing about this list stands out to me as too surprising. The events towards the top of the list all have had historically fast races during this year, while those at the bottom are those that I think most of us would say are less competitive than the track events, particularly as of late. The pole vault at the top of the field events makes sense, as we've had a historically great year in that event (though its still ahead of only 1 track event, the steeple). The half marathon being at the bottom of the running events makes sense as there are a lot of results still to come during the year.

Not nearly all. ALL of the WRs held by dopers.

Does it factor in pre vs post-super shoe era performances?

According to the World Athletics points table, that Women's Discuss record is the equivalent performance of a woman running any of:

1:48.2
3:38
7:42
13:12
27:38
60:48
2:05:59

That's what stood out to me. There isn't 1% chance that Sydney's 50.37 is a better record than Koch's 47.60.

The scoring tables simply can't account for 400 hurdles and how much the new shoes have changed that event for the elite handful. The shoes don't benefit mid pack nearly as much. They can't use one less step. They still stagger toward the finish. It's like a redistribution of wealth with everything funneled to the CEO.

Notice that other than Usain Bolt, the only two running marks that place extremely high are men's and women's 400 hurdles. That's not right. It is impact of the shoes.

But the endurance records are properly lower tier. All of them still have room to advance, regardless of conventional wisdom around here.

Otherwise I think Jonathan Edwards' triple jump is not scored highly enough.

Or 10.19, 20.66, 45.75.

Eastern bloc - 7

Chinese -1

Kersee - 1

That’s 9 out of 30 if I’m counting correctly.

Fascinating. Thanks for doing this research. You inspired me to do some more. I compared the men's and women's records in Olympic events to the second, fifth, and tenth best performers. Here are the men's records, listed in order of the percent that they are better than the second best performer.

Event Best Second Difference Percent
PV 6.26 6.16 0.1 1.6%
Shot 23.56 23.23 0.33 1.4%
100 9.58 9.69 0.11 1.1%
Decathlon 9126 9045 81 0.9%
HJ 2.45 2.43 0.02 0.8%
Hammer 86.74 86.04 0.7 0.8%
Jav 98.48 97.76 0.72 0.7%
LJ 8.95 8.9 0.05 0.6%
400H 45.94 46.17 0.23 0.5%
Marathon 7235 7269 34 0.5%
TJ 18.29 18.21 0.08 0.4%
10,000 1571 1577.53 6.53 0.4%
Disc 74.35 74.08 0.27 0.4%
200 19.19 19.26 0.07 0.4%
400 43.03 43.18 0.15 0.3%
Steeple 472.11 473.63 1.52 0.3%
800 100.91 101.11 0.2 0.2%
5,000 755.36 756.73 1.37 0.2%
1500 206 206.34 0.34 0.2%
110H 12.8 12.81 0.01 0.1%