Australian Athletics Meets Rankings – Who’s On Top

By Matt Lynch – Runner’s Tribe

On the 28th March 2018, QLD Athletics hosted the final track and field competition before the star of the Commonwealth Games. After months of the planning, the Queensland International Track Classic (QITC) accommodated athletes from over 30 countries, Olympic champions, World champions and thousands of hungry athletics fans!

The event was the perfect combination of elite level competition and relaxed atmosphere. An opportunity for the Australian’s to tune up for the event as well as a chance for the international to knock off a bit of ring rust from the long flight over.

With an opportunity to play with the start lists, this event also threw up some interesting head to heads with the likes of Elaine Thompson lining up for the 100m heats against World Record holder Isis Holt and Rohan Browning racing side by side with Yohan Blake.

Even off the track there was plenty going on. Steve Cram out there with his squad of athletes, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce with her new born out to support her fellow Jamaicans. Yohan actually spent so long signing autographs after his race his management actually had to drag him off the track to warm down. Even the entire England netball team showed up just to get a glimpse of Blake, spilling onto the track to line up for a signature.

The significance of this meet really shines through when looking at it via the IAAF Competition Performance Rankings, the system that ranks  all meets against each other utilising a point-score system based on performances and participation (found here) once hosted by All Athletics and now under the IAAF banner.

The QITC, ranked against all “One day/Open” competitions in the world for 2018, finished in 37th place, the highest ranking for an Australian competition since 2001 (the rankings only date back to 2001) and posted the highest Australian competition score since the 2006 Melbourne Telstra Track Classic. The next highest AUS meet in 2018 was the Sydney Track Classic, which came in at 100th

The highest ever ranked Australian meet was the 2001 IAAF Grand Prix Final that was held in Melbourne in in early September. This meet ranked seventh in the world that year If you want to check out the ridiculous line up that graced Melbourne Olympic Park click here and here. It was the first time the IAAF GP final was held in the southern hemisphere and it jumped on the back of the 2001 Goodwill Games held in Brisbane only a few days before.

With the new IAAF World championships qualifying point score system coming into place from September 7, 2018, the Track and Field competition landscape could very well be shifting. For good or bad who is to know, but if you’re and athletes or coach right now, I hope you’re getting your head around it. Personally, I think this new system put Australia in a very good position to be able to score points before any other nation has actually began their season. Giving us the opportunity to then head to Asia/USA/Europe already with a good set of scoring performances.