Disgrace of the year? TFN ranks Matthew Centrowitz #5 in its 2016 1500/mile rankings

And Leo would agree with you

These guys are infatuated with the Africans. No way an American miler beats out those African milers for a numba one in the bible of the sport. Centro is way better than a 5.

Let's Run got it right. They had Centro at World #1 and Manzano got a #7 honorable mention for U.S.

Track and Field fogeys are lazy and out of touch.

Indoors is not taken into consideration for those rankings.

So throw out all of those indoor results.

Centro had one good race.

Unless you consider US Trials where those he was competing against for rankings were not permitted to race. But it was still a good race.

He had the #21 time in the 1500

And he didn't put up a mile result.

Manzano had the #12 US time and didn't have any good races outside of the Trials. I agree he shouldn't be ranked 4th in the US.

For seasonal rankings they do way the championships heavily but they also heavily weigh running the fastest time in the world and give a lot of weight to racing often.

Centro failed in the latter two.

Kiprop, Iguider, Managoi and Makhloufi all put up a series of fast times that were better than Centro's best.

We 100% agree with . After we published our rankings, an industry insider emailed me and said that he'd seen an advanced copy of TFN's and Centro was only #5.

That's ridiculous.

He won two global titles, ran 3:50 in the mile and the US Olympic Trials + the Wanamaker mile. Yes the DL is more important than indoors but shouldn't we also punish the Kenyans for not running indoors?

I'll try to find a copy of my subscription and see who the 4 were that were ranked ahead of him.

Here are our 1500 rankings.

From TNFN page:

The Rankings are based on these 3 criteria, in descending order of importance: 1. Honors Won; 2. Head-To-Head records with other athletes; 3. Sequence Of Marks.

Hard to total head-to-head records when he chose not to race them more than once.

His sequence of marks wasn't great.

Indoors does not count.

Star wrote:

From TNFN page:

The Rankings are based on these 3 criteria, in descending order of importance: 1. Honors Won; 2. Head-To-Head records with other athletes; 3. Sequence Of Marks.

Hard to total head-to-head records when he chose not to race them more than once.

His sequence of marks wasn't great.

Indoors does not count.

Then how did they rank Manzano 4th? He couldn't run a fast time to save his life and had a losing record against anyone he ran against more than two times.

I like the lets run protocol better where you can't get a ranking off one race unless that one race is off the charts crazy. Like he 1500 Jäger ran 2 years ago.

Traditionally, TF&N has included indoors marks from some field events like the pole vault and high jump to determine rankings but no running events.

Well...then... wrote:

Star wrote:

From TNFN page:

The Rankings are based on these 3 criteria, in descending order of importance: 1. Honors Won; 2. Head-To-Head records with other athletes; 3. Sequence Of Marks.

Hard to total head-to-head records when he chose not to race them more than once.

His sequence of marks wasn't great.

Indoors does not count.

Then how did they rank Manzano 4th? He couldn't run a fast time to save his life and had a losing record against anyone he ran against more than two times.

I like the lets run protocol better where you can't get a ranking off one race unless that one race is off the charts crazy. Like he 1500 Jäger ran 2 years ago.

Yeah plus Manzano didn't win any races either. Colby, Murphy, Merber and Gregorek all had wins. Hell Alexander won one of the biggest races of the year at Eugene in that pro race in a super fast time against a great field. Did track and field news even know about that? Stupid.

Yeah, agree. The problem with Centro not being ranked higher was that he had nothing on his resume besides the Olympic win. Remember T&FN rankings are on a SEASON'S record. Centro did not race against his competition aside from the Olympics. Olympic Trials results (strictly domestic competition) and indoors (T&FN doesn't count them) don't count, so Centro has nothing else to show. Their third criteria, marks, usually don't come into plays unless a WR is involved.

How about the Women's 1500m rankings? Rowbury ranked 3rd in the world and 1st in the US ahead of Simpson??

Simpson beat her at USAs and the Olympics...what else matters?

I wrote in my earlier post that they got Manzano's US ranking wrong.

Probably didn't spend as much time analyzing the US rankings.

No way he should be 4th ranked on the season.

Star wrote:

I wrote in my earlier post that they got Manzano's US ranking wrong.

Probably didn't spend as much time analyzing the US rankings.

No way he should be 4th ranked on the season.

Well if they don't count indoors they got Andrews ranking wrong too. He had a great Trials. That's it. A one race season doesn't get you a top 3 rank. Especially when you race often and race poorly. That's not a top 3 miler.

Blankenship should be 2. Alexander 3. Gregorek 4. Merber 5. Andrews 6.

Ben, Colby, Johnny and Kyle raced Andrews numerous times and trounced him every time but the Trials. I know Trials is huge but does one stinkin' race combined with a BAD rest of the year make you a top 3 miler? No way.

IMO:

Kiprop #1

Makhloufi #2

Centro #3

I certainly haven't looked into all of this.

But Andrews made the Olympic team.

And then he made the Olympic semifinal.

And then he made the Olympic final but was DQed for passing on the inside on the straight (not as bad as on the curve).

He also was third on the US list overall.

So Andrews beat everyone ranked below him at the Trials AND he ran faster than everyone ranked below him.

Olympic heat and semi are more important than a diamond league. An Olympic semi is more competitive than a diamond league race. Everyone peaks for the Olympics. That should be worth five diamond league wins.

Track and field news Is the Bible of the sport, full of unrealistic events, hypocrisy, fantasy and outright lies

Star wrote:

I certainly haven't looked into all of this.

But Andrews made the Olympic team.

And then he made the Olympic semifinal.

And then he made the Olympic final but was DQed for passing on the inside on the straight (not as bad as on the curve).

He also was third on the US list overall.

So Andrews beat everyone ranked below him at the Trials AND he ran faster than everyone ranked below him.

Logically put. But if you had asked anyone, including Robby, to describe his Olympic performance, they'd have said "disappointing". So he had a "one race" year.

I submit that a "one race" year shouldn't get you a top 3 ranking. Should be your body of work.

You do realise that the "Athletics International" World Merit rankings published in AW and compiled by an international panel of world renowned statisticians, only had Centrowitz at No 6 for the 1500m in 2017!?

I personally feel that is too low, but it should be remembered that T&FN do not take indoor performances into consideration, as most elites skip this.

As glad as I was to see him win in Rio, he did himself no favours by not running a single DL race and skipping the post Olympic big meets.

I don't hold too much stock on the T&FN rankings, as I think certain races should be weighted in importance. Kiprop may have won a few early season races, but in the biggest ones of the year, OG, Monaco, Brussels, etc, he did poorly.

It is by no means a precedent in not ranking the OLympic Champion as No. 1.

In 1980, Coe was unbeaten, won the Olympic gold, ran within 0.2sec of the world record in winning Zurich, generally considered the 2nd most important meet of the year, and beat all the leading milers; Ovett, Scott, Walker, Bayi, etc; but was only ranked No. 2, behind Ovett.

This was probably down to running just 2 international 1500s all year!

Interestingly, in the UK rankings for that year Coe was No. 1 with Ovett (World No. 1) only considered UK No. 2!! I can't imagine that has ever happened before or since!

women's 1500 rankings wrote:

How about the Women's 1500m rankings? Rowbury ranked 3rd in the world and 1st in the US ahead of Simpson??

Simpson beat her at USAs and the Olympics...what else matters?

Again, domestic results like Olympic trials don't count in WORLD rankings. In international meets, Simpson beat Rowbury at Pre and in the Olympics but lost to her at the Paris Diamond League (where Muir ran 3:55) and in the Zurich Diamond League final, which Rowbury won. So the head to head was 2-2, but Rowbury had 23 Diamond League points to 11 for Simpson (winning the Diamond League final counts for double points.) Simpson did not win a Diamond League race. Probably a very close call for T&FN to make.