World and US Women's Rankings are Here: Faith Kipyegon #1 in World, Jenny Simpson #3 Give us your feedback

We just made a correction. In the drafting process we had added Semenya in at #9 but in publishing published an earlier version. We noticed the mistake and now have corrected it with Semenya #9.

But we would like input. We're not opposed to shifting any of the rankings if someone could convince us. The most convincing argument I've seen for change is for not ranking Hassan as high in the 800 for example, but we haven't made any changes yet.

Klosterhalfen should be ranked higher than Chebet. Both missed the World Finals. KK ran only one DL 1500 as a rookie, so it seems not quite fair to put Chebet ahead mainly because of the DL races while Klosterhalfen had a better seasonal best, three races sub4 (among them the only sub4 in 2017 without pacemakers, if I am not mistaken), a European silver indoors as well as a few other important wins, like the European U23, Berlin ISTAF and the European Team CS. Granted, none were with DL strenght fields but she clearly prevailed against Bahta, Cichocka, Ennaoui, Koster etc.

Jenny didn't do very well in the diamond league, but you ranked her third in large part due to her silver at Worlds... Bosse got first at worlds but wasn't top 3. Just saying, it does seem like you take worlds into account some times more than others.

That womens 1500 WC field was just so strong, including Semenya, that it probably warranted more weight. It proved to be one of the all time great races.

Glad Jenny did beat Semenya, but the intersex athletes should not be in that race.

jhand366 wrote:

Jenny didn't do very well in the diamond league, but you ranked her third in large part due to her silver at Worlds... Bosse got first at worlds but wasn't top 3. Just saying, it does seem like you take worlds into account some times more than others.

We try our best to be consistent, but it's difficult.

In this case, as the poster above pointed out, Simpson does earn extra credit compared to Bosse because of how loaded the World Championship field was. Finishing second in THAT field is arguably worth more than Bosse winning against a weaker field (granted, this isn't Bosse's fault, but several of the best guys in the event were hurt this year; Bosse was the only 2016 Olympic finalist who made the WC final in 2017). Simpson also gets credit for winning USAs (not a DL quality field, but still some quality runners).

I'm interested who you think should be ahead of Simpson. In Bosse's case, two of the four guys ahead of him were WC medalists and another, Amos, dominated the DL circuit. Several of the women below Simpson barely raced on the DL circuit at all. Simpson was great at Worlds and USAs, and 6th at the DL final was better than anything Bosse did all year outside of Worlds (he was 4th in Monaco, but the 800 wasn't a DL event at that meet).

As we said in the article, there's definitely an argument to be made that Simpson should be lower. Just wanted to show that we do put some thought into it.

Thanks for the insight (and to falconrunner22 as well). I am not sure who else should be ahead of Jenny - or even if anyone should be. Id have to do a little homework to give my honest opinion - but I was one of the people who thought Bosse should be higher. Top 3 at least, as is Jenny. Just my opinion though.

Also, regarding the 800m field being weaker than then 1500m field at World's, the 800 still contained all the top 800m runners of the year, didn't it?

jhand366 wrote:

Also, regarding the 800m field being weaker than then 1500m field at World's, the 800 still contained all the top 800m runners of the year, didn't it?

It did. And for rankings purposes, ideally it shouldn't matter that this was a stronger year historically year for women's 1500 compared to the men's 800, though that may have still factored into my opinion when it came to ranking Simpson.

It depends if one rates tactical ability and performance in the most important races higher than sheer running ability.

Hassan and Muir did not dare to make the WC Final fast (sub4) from the beginning. If they had done this, Kipyegon would probably still have won but Muir and Hassan would probably have been on the podium because neither Semanya nor Simpson would have had much of a kick left at 3:56 pace for 3 laps (or been simply dropped too far behind). Muir was probably not in the top shape of 2016 or early 2017 and Hassan misestimated that she was not among the 3 fastest on the last (half) lap in a race that had begun with moderate pace.