Oregon World Championships Tracking

Cover image of Amy Cashin by Fred Etter

Our busiest, and final update, before the close of the World Championships qualifying period on 26 June.

We last updated this article a fortnight ago. There’s a significant number of changes due to the Oceania Championships and international competition in Europe hitting its peak.

As a quick reminder: athletes can be eligible for selection for the World Championships by either recording a qualifying performance, or being one of the next top athletes based on World Rankings within a set quota for the size of the field in each event. The World Rankings are based on an average of a number of performances, taking into account the quality of the performance (using scoring tables) and the placing achieved, with different weighting given to competitions of different statuses.

Qualifiers

• As we published our last update Georgia Griffith had just recorded a 1500m qualifying mark of 4:03.95. She’s since gone even faster to run 4:00.18. It sets up an even more fascinating four-way selection decision for just three spots, between Griffith, Olympic finalists Jessica Hull and Linden Hall and national champion Abbey Caldwell.
• Amy Cashin was already safely within the qualifying quota in the 3000m steeplechase, but now doesn’t need to worry about that, thanks to a 9:27.91 win in Portland, USA to better the qualifying mark.
• Joseph Deng returned back to near personal best 800m form, finishing second in France in 1:44.69. It was Deng’s fifth career sub-1:45 time, with all of the other performances being recorded back in 2018.
• Not affecting their qualifying status – they already had the qualifiers from last year – but steeplechasers Ben Buckingham (8:19.79 – a PB) and Ed Trippas (8:20.29) are in good form heading into Oregon.
• STOP PRESS: At the Bislett Games overnight, Jack Rayner recorded a 5000m qualifying performance of 13:06.00 to become the third fastest Australian over the distance behind Craig Mottram and Stewart McSweyn. The highlight Australian performance of the meet was a new national record – and 13th fastest performer ever in the world – over the mile by Ollie Hoare. Hoare clocked a sensational 3:48.37, which you can watch in the video below. Hoare already has the 1500m qualifier to his name at 3:32.66, but actually recorded a 3:31.7 1500m split en route last night.

The winners from the Oceania Championships

Well, okay, not necessarily the actual ‘winners’ because they don’t necessarily count

Bear with us on this one.

The Oceania Championships – featuring some of Australia’s top athletes, many of New Zealand’s and a range of athletes from Pacific nations – took place last week in Mackay. The Oceania Championships are one of six Area Championships that take place around the world from time-to-time (the others being Africa; Asia; Europe; North America, Central America & Caribbean; and South America).

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In addition to reaching a qualifying standard or achieving a quota position, the Area Champion in an event is taken by World Athletics to have reached the qualifying standard in their event.

Except if the event is a field event or the 3000m steeplechase, 5000m, 10000m or multi-events, where the Technical Delegate for the World Championships has discretion to reject the qualification. You’ll see that in the tables below for most field events at the Oceania Championships, that that discretion has been used to reject the qualification.

The other caveat – and a big one – is that Athletics Australia’s selection criteria identifies that it “will not automatically accept the qualification of the Area Champions.” So, to be considered for remaining discretionary selections, the Oceania Champion ‘must still qualify in the field size on the World Athletics Ranking lists‘. World Athletics doesn’t present where the Area Champions sit on the their Road to Oregon page, so we’ve added those calculations in manually.

Okay, so the winners…

Well, basically anyone who turned up to the Oceania Championships and finished their event. There are astronomically high ranking points – hugely disproportionate to the quality of the competition – that now count toward the World Rankings (and continue to do so for future events, until the next Oceania Championships).

You can see which athletes received the biggest boosts to their ranking scores in the past fortnight. Generally, a reasonable or good performance at the Oceania Championships resulted in a huge 20+ point improvement in a ranking score. The only exception to such large leaps in rankings not being from the Oceania Championships is from Bendere Oboya, racing the 800m in Europe. You may recall Oboya is in her first season of racing the 800m, and was unexpectedly run out in the heats of the Australian championships.

The Rankings

Last updated 16 June. Comparison made to 2 June listing.

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To aid with interpreting the tables, we’ve done some traffic light analysis of those athletes relying on quota qualifying against potential changes in the rankings from international athlete performances.

Green shading is for athletes who are safely within the quota, with it incredibly unlikely that they would be displaced by other athletes during the time left in the qualifying period.

Orange shading is for athletes who are within the quota and at risk of dropping out if other athletes improve. We’ve also categorised Kathryn Mitchell in the javelin in this manner – she doesn’t have a ranking (yet) but returned to competition last week with a 57m throw in Germany. Replicating this in the next week would move her to around 26th in the rankings.

Pink shading is for athletes who are outside the quota. It’s a real uphill battle to enter the quota (and then stay within it) at the end of the qualifying period, particularly with a number of nations holding their National Championships (high point scoring opportunities) on the final weekend of the qualifying period.

We’ve greyed out Oceania Champions that World Athletics Rejects, and athletes on maternity leave from the sport, because we reckon their achievements are still noteworthy to record.

Unshaded athletes are ones that don’t need to worry about the quota – they have qualified. There’s a few events where Australia currently has more than 3 athletes eligible for selection for the 3 places available, with some great depth in women’s events in particular:

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• Women’s 1500m (mentioned previously)
• Women’s 200m, with 5 athletes currently eligible for 3 available spots
• Women’s 800m, with 5 athletes currently eligible for 2 remaining spots
• Women’s 5000m, with 3 athletes currently eligible for 2 remaining spots
• Women’s 100m hurdles, with 3 athletes currently eligible for 2 remaining spots
• Women’s 3000m steeplechase, with 4 athletes currently eligible for 3 spots
• Women’s Marathon, with 4 athletes currently eligible for 3 spots
• Men’s 1500m, with 4 athletes currently eligible for 3 spots

Women’s Qualifying

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Men’s Qualifying

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