Kenyans double Olympics 1,500m champion Faith Chepngetich Kipyehon and Olympic 1,500m silver medalist Timothy Cheruiyot are the best Africa athletes according to the world Athletics Ranking.
World Athletics devised a new global ranking system where athletes score points on a combination of result and place depending on the level of the competition in which the result is achieved. The ranking is based on an average score over a number of competitions over a period of time.
The African continent has managed to get two athletes who have been included in the overall ranking with two times Olympics gold medallist Faith Kipyegon ranked number four in women overall with
Timothy Cheruiyot who is the Olympic silver medallist ranked number nine.
Norways Karsten Warholm and Sifan Hassan from the Netherlands have been ranked as the top athletes in the world.
The rankings pre-Olympics actually help determined what athletes made up the final spots in Japan and were no doubt a reason why the qualifying standards were harder than normal to put a greater importance on the rankings system.
World Athletics has now updated the rankings taking into account the Olympic results on the rankings published on August 18 and then again a few days after the Eugene meeting a week later and they make interesting reading but to some still need a tinkering with.
Ironically the rankings are a better reflection of athletes abilities after Oregon than they were after the Olympics which suggests the organisation hasn’t quite got their priorities right.
When athletes win Olympic golds in the fastest time of the year such as Elaine Thompson-Herah at 100m, Athing Mu at 800m and Sydney McLaughlin and 400m hurdles they should be the world no.1 rather than a very consistent athlete with a better set of marks?
Leading Men
1 Karsten Warholm (NOR) 1539
2 Armand Duplantis (SWE) 1535
3 Ryan Crouser (USA) 1500
4 Andre de Grasse (CAN) 1491
5 Damian Warner (CAN) 1473
6 Alison Dos Santos (BRA) 1466
7 Jakob Ingebrigtsen (NOR) 1465
8 Rai Benjamin (USA) 1463
9 Timothy Cheruiyot (KEN) 1444
10 Kenny Bednarek (USA) 1443
Overall women
1 Sifan Hassan (NED) 1534
2 Elaine Thompson-Herah (JAM) 1515
3 Yulimar Rojas (VEN) 1475
4 Faith Kipyegon (KEN) 1474
5 Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (JAM) 1458
6 Femke Bol (NED) 1455
7 Katie Nageotte (USA) 1444
8 Jasmine Camacho-Quinn (PUR) 1433
9 Peres Jepchirchir (KEN) 1430
10 Hyvin Kiyeng (KEN) 1429