Men's and Women's Steeple World and US Rankings: US Women Go 1-2 at Worlds, But American Men Go 3-4 in Rankings, USWomen 4&7

Women's ranking clearly done to incite conversation and debate, not to provide a legitimate ranking. Careful with that philosophy or you will lose even more credibility.

Is Emma’s time one of the fastest ever when running prelims and if so doesn’t that possibly trump and one done diamond league race? I see the importance of consistency, but Coburn’s race is still the performance of the year.

Coburn was 2-2 vs Kiyeng... Beating her at the two most important races of the year and running nearly the same time.

In the women’s ranking article, you forgot to mention Bernard Lagat’s 15/5 golds when discussing US distance gold medalists. What’s up with that?

head to head wrote:

Coburn was 2-2 vs Kiyeng... Beating her at the two most important races of the year and running nearly the same time.

Very good point. I can see Kiyeng being behind Coburn. But Jebets season ranks ahead of Coburn so does that mean you put Jebet 2, Coburn 3 and Kiyeng 4?and there's the fact the rest of Kiyeng's season was better than Coburns.

Give me a better top 4. You could argue we put too much stock in the joint head to heads amongst the 4.

FYI the rankings aren't done to promote controversy. I'd didn't even realize the US men were ahead of us women until I was seeing which threads had been started.

2. Jebet 3. Coburn 4. Kiyeng

Complete nonsense.

The lowest Coburn should be is 2nd

By old coach Walter Hesketh told me he didn't care if he lost minor races they were all part of the build up to the championships. He was national xc champion in every age group culminating in winning the senior defeating favourite Gordon Pirie.

Do people remember Pirie' world record or him getting destroyed by Kuts in the Olympics

I think you should give more credit to Coburn winning the gold. She may have been beaten in Diamond Leagues, but those races have rabbits. World Championships are truly the test. Lots of racing strategy, instead of simply following a rabbit.

Surprised you guys didn't rank Jebet higher. You basically gave her zero credit for running the fastest time in the world (by far). Or if she hadn't run that fast time, would you have ranked her lower?

Fun Gus wrote:

I think you should give more credit to Coburn winning the gold. She may have been beaten in Diamond Leagues, but those races have rabbits. World Championships are truly the test. Lots of racing strategy, instead of simply following a rabbit.

I agree with this post. Being able to perform on the day of a world level championship race should be THE paramount factor in ranking runners. It's what matters most. Many of the other races during the season have pacers, involve much less pressure, and there is often less stringent drug testing (or none). Any one of those women who you ranked above Coburn would very gladly trade their higher ranking or faster times for her WC gold medal.

To give "#1" to a runner who completely missed the water barrier in the most important race of the year is a ratings farce. Gault seems to be going out of his way to screw up these ratings.

This is consistent with his ridiculous rant against Conner and Portland after PAC12s. Just plain ignorance of what racing is all about.

YMMV wrote:

To give "#1" to a runner who completely missed the water barrier in the most important race of the year is a ratings farce. Gault seems to be going out of his way to screw up these ratings.

This is consistent with his ridiculous rant against Conner and Portland after PAC12s. Just plain ignorance of what racing is all about.

We disagree with the logic and so does Track and Field News and Athletics Weekly who also had Chepkoech #1 in their rankings.

We do however agree with poster "head to head" that Coburn should be ahead of Kiyeng and has changed our rankings. One of the reasons we started these threads with each ranking was to get your input and it's the only ranking we're going to change this year. Final rankings here:

YMMV wrote:

To give "#1" to a runner who completely missed the water barrier in the most important race of the year is a ratings farce. Gault seems to be going out of his way to screw up these ratings.

This is consistent with his ridiculous rant against Conner and Portland after PAC12s. Just plain ignorance of what racing is all about.

I stand by Chepkoech at #1 for the reasons outlined in the article. Please tell me who should have been #1 instead.

After reading this thread and talking with Weldon, I agree that I underrated Coburn and we've bumped her up accordingly.

Maybe I'm ignorant about racing but at least I know what conference Portland is in...

I agree with your final ra,nking including that you placed Gesa Krause #8, just that I don't think she disappointed in the WC final. There, she was involved in a bad fall after about 2 laps - see http://www.ardmediathek.de/tv/Leichtathletik-WM-2017-London/Drama-um-Krause-im-3-000-m-Hindernis-Fin/Das-Erste/Video?bcastId=44966688&documentId=45144850 if this is accessible outside Germany - and it didn't go by itself that she finished the race at all (btw her reaction to that misfortune earned her a special prize in the German sportspeople of the year elections).