Irish athletes' IAAF rankings

bazzer06

Hi everyone. Just read an old thread showing Irish athlete’s international rankings, and thought it might be interesting to do it with the Athletics in Beijing starting soon!

So, based on the IAAF rankings – which I know aren’t exactly perfect – here are our top ten in their respective events:

1) Olive Loughnane 20kmW 10
- Roisin McGettigan 3000mSC 10
3) Eileen O’Keeffe Hammer 13
4) Robert Heffernan 20kmW 14
5) Paul Hession 200m 18
6) Alistair Cragg 5000m 23
7) David Gillick 400m 24
8) Michelle Carey 400mH 28
- Derval O’Rourke 100mH 28
10) Fionnuala Britton 3000mSC 29

So all in the top thirty there, which I guess is promising. However, the list based on accumulated points looks quite different:

1) Paul Hession 1219
2) Robert Heffernan 1218
- Roisin McGettigan 1218
4) Derval O’Rourke 1212
5) David Gillick 1204
6) Olive Loughnane 1200
7) Alistair Cragg 1174
8) Joanne Cuddihy 1173
9) Michelle Carey 1170
- Eileen O’Keeffe 1170

As regards general stats and comments
- all athletes going to Beijing are in the top 100 of their event, with the exception of Pauline Curley
- all except Curley, Chamney, Griffin and Costin are in the top 50 of their event
- along with O’Keeffe, the only other top 100 field event athletes we have are Michael Allen, ranked 61 in the Javelin and Deirdre Ryan, ranked 54 in the High Jump
- as has been said before, there seems to be a shift in both directions away from middle distance, with top 100 spots in the 100m, 200m and 400m (2) for men, and in the 100mH, 400m and 400mH for women. At the other end of the scale, we have three top 100 ranked men and one top 100 ranked woman in the racewalking events. The middle distance, while by no means barren, has Cragg as the only top 50 ranking, with top 100 rankings in the 800m (Chamney) the 1500m (Deirdre Byrne and James Nolan) and one in the 5000m (Maria McCambridge). However, if including the 3000mSC, two more top 30 rankings are included (Britton and McGettigan).


These are just my random musings, sorry! Come to think of it is the 5000m middle distance…

Anyhow, hope some of ye are as sad as I am and enjoy pointless stats!

Barry

bazzer06

Okay, just read the sticky on irish rankings - amazingly done btw! - and obviously middle distance - from which i can exclude the 5000m - is alive and well judging by the amount of 1500 results in there! does make you wonder though why we produce such a large stock of almost there athletes, but only have 2 top 100 athletes? seems strange when compared to the racewalking stats!

rdunne

Do you think boxing in Ireland shows us how it should be done. You keep the best runners together. Put them up feed them make them a unit. They learn from each other. I think the boxers will come home with touch wood 3 medals

thirtyfoot

rdunne wrote: »

Do you think boxing in Ireland shows us how it should be done. You keep the best runners together. Put them up feed them make them a unit. They learn from each other. I think the boxers will come home with touch wood 3 medals

I think the boxing setup is great and really the way forward but track and field is more difficult as its multi-disciplined with maybe up to a dozen coaches required to cover all events. I do believe (and Roy Mc touched on this) that we have too many clubs and the coaching excellence is spread too wide. A few "super" clubs with the best coaches gathered in these clubs so that athletes could group together and train together with these top coaches would be great. Due to political and parochial issues this will never happen.

In rugby you have 4 provinces and clubs feed into these provinces. In track and field you could have 15-20 "super" clubs and other clubs feed into these clubs at senior level. In the Combined Rankings there are 57 different clubs across the 180 odd athletes, too much of a spread. Current clubs could apply for "super" or "Premier" club license from AAI and all athletes would have to compete with these clubs in national competitions. The belief that the fabric of Irish athletics would be lost is probably true but when you see the lack of diversity we have in our sport its a risk worth taking. "Premier" club licenses would be up for review every 2-4 years and if clubs weren't fulfilling the requirements they would lose it and other more ambitious clubs could then apply. Access to track facilities and a minimum of Level II coaches would be a requirement for license.

bazzer06

i think the idea of "super clubs" is excellent - we simply can't afford, if the human resources can even be said to exist, to have top class coaches in every club, and obviously they are currently too concentrated now to allow our athletes who could progress to world class level to so progress.

i also wouldn't be worries too much about the fabric of irish athletics - in fact i think having a tier of "premier league" style clubs would increase the attractiveness of athyletics to younger people, and therefore increase uptake at a local level. if there were to be such a "league", the number of competitions should be limited, so that other events exist where athletes could still represent there "home" club

RoyMcC

The theory is good. It works to a degree in GB where an athlete from a smaller club can claim and compete for a higher-ranked club at a meeting where those two clubs aren't matched together. Therefore the athlete gets access to regular higher level competition.

The 'super clubs' would however, in Ireland's case, need to be created. As Tingle suggests, perhaps along provincial lines. I wonder if we have the appetite for this?

But certainly there needs to be a concentration of excellence of athletes, coaches and facilities. For example, what greater purpose does it serve to have our few throwers and throwing coaches scattered far and wide with no mutual input of ideas and energy?

But with the tendency generally of coaches to be so precious about 'their' athletes I can't see this happening anytime soon.

Pherekydes

bazzer06 wrote: »

These are just my random musings, sorry!

Anyhow, hope some of ye are as sad as I am and enjoy pointless stats!

Barry

Don't apologise! We track fans love pointless stats!