World Rankings Movement at the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25

This article is part of a USATF Campus exclusive series to help understand the World Athletics Rankings. For track enthusiasts and elite athletes alike, this series aims to provide clarity, analysis, and education on all things World Rankings and how they impact Team USATF. For more information on how the World Rankings system works, see this article.

Who Leads the World?

For fans of track and field, the World Athletics Championships Tokyo 25 was filled with surprises and upsets, and as such, lots of movement in the World Rankings. When looking strictly at the top 15 athletes in each event’s rankings, the time period from before to after Tokyo 25 had more movement than any other weekly rankings update. With marks expiring from the previous global championship – the 2024 Paris Olympics – and new champions crowned, nearly half (21/44) of all events contested saw new world #1's emerge from Tokyo 25. Unsurprisingly, this movement disproportionately affected events outside of the stadium, with these long-distance athletes competing less frequently than some of their in-stadium counterparts. Table 1 below shows each road event and the world #1's before and after Tokyo 25, with new #1's highlighted and World Champions denoted with an asterisk (*).

Table 1

 

Event	Pre-Tokyo 25 world #1	Post-Tokyo 25 world #1
Men’s Marathon	Sabastian Kimaru SAWE	Sabastian Kimaru SAWE
Women’s Marathon	Tigst ASEFFA	Peres JEPCHIRCHIR *
Men’s 20km Race Walk	Toshikazu YAMANISHI	Caio BONFIM *
Women’s 20km Race Walk	Jiayu YANG	María PÉREZ *
Men’s 35km Race Walk	Massimo STANO	Evan DUNFEE *
Women’s 35km Race Walk	Olivia SANDERY	María PÉREZ *

 

On the other end of the spectrum, field events saw significantly less change in world #1's. Of the 18 total jumping, throwing, and combined events, only the Men’s Long Jump, Men’s Triple Jump, Women’s Javelin Throw, and Women’s Heptathlon had new world #1's after Tokyo 25. Table 2 below highlights the remarkable consistency of these field events.

Table 2

 

Event	Pre-Tokyo 25 world #1	Post-Tokyo 25 world #1
Men’s Shot Put	Joe KOVACS	Joe KOVACS
Women’s Shot Put	Chase JACKSON	Chase JACKSON
Men’s Discus Throw	Mykolas ALEKNA	Mykolas ALEKNA
Women’s Discus Throw	Valarie ALLMAN	Valarie ALLMAN *
Men’s Hammer Throw	Ethan KATZBERG	Ethan KATZBERG *
Women’s Hammer Throw	Camryn ROGERS	Camryn ROGERS *
Men’s Javelin Throw	Julian WEBER	Julian WEBER
Women’s Javelin Throw	Haruka KITAGUCHI	Elina TZENGKO
Men’s High Jump	Hamish KERR	Hamish KERR *
Women’s High Jump	Nicola OLYSLAGERS	Nicola OLYSLAGERS *
Men’s Long Jump	Miltiadis TENTOGLOU	Mattia FURLANI *
Women’s Long Jump	Malaika MIHAMBO	Malaika MIHAMBO
Men’s Triple Jump	Andy DÍAZ HERNÁNDEZ	Pedro PICHARDO *
Women’s Triple Jump	Leyanis PÉREZ HERNÁNDEZ	Leyanis PÉREZ HERNÁNDEZ *
Men’s Pole Vault	Armand DUPLANTIS	Armand DUPLANTIS *
Women’s Pole Vault	Katie MOON	Katie MOON *
Men’s Decathlon	Leo NEUGEBAUER	Leo NEUGEBAUER *
Women’s Heptathlon	Nafissatou THIAM	Anna HALL *

 

*Tokyo 25 Champion

For track events, an interesting pattern emerges. Because the 5000m, 10,000m, and 3000m Steeplechase require fewer than five events to establish a world ranking, one may expect that these events would experience more variance strictly because of the larger impact each result has. However, this was not the case as only the Men’s 5000m and Women’s 3000m Steeplechase saw new athletes ascend to the top, leaving the other four distance events unchanged. Meanwhile, ten out of the fourteen sprint/mid-distance events established new world #1's despite requiring five performances for a world ranking, as seen in Table 3 below.

Table 3

 

Event	Pre-Tokyo 25 world #1	Post-Tokyo 25 world #1
Men’s 100m	Kishane THOMPSON	Oblique SEVILLE *
Women’s 100m	Julien ALFRED	Melissa JEFFERSON-WOODEN *
Men’s 200m	Letsile TEBOGO	Noah LYLES *
Women’s 200m	Brittany BROWN	Anavia BATTLE
Men’s 400m	Matthew HUDSON-SMITH	Bayapo NDORI
Women’s 400m	Marileidy PAULINO	Marileidy PAULINO
Men’s 800m	Emmanuel WANYONYI	Emmanuel WANYONYI *
Women’s 800m	Keely HODGKINSON	Georgia HUNTER BELL
Men’s 1500m	Yared NUGUSE	Isaac NADER *
Women’s 1500m	Jessica HULL	Nelly CHEPCHIRCHIR
Men’s 5000m	Yomif KEJELCHA	Jimmy GRESSIER
Women’s 5000m	Beatrice CHEBET	Beatrice CHEBET *
Men’s 10,000m	Berihu AREGAWI	Berihu AREGAWI
Women’s 10,000m	Beatrice CHEBET	Beatrice CHEBET *
Men’s 110m Hurdles	Grant HOLLOWAY	Cordell TINCH *
Women’s 100m Hurdles	Grace STARK	Grace STARK
Men’s 400m Hurdles	Karsten WARHOLM	Rai BENJAMIN *
Women’s 400m Hurdles	Femke BOL	Femke BOL *
Men’s 3000m Steeplechase	Soufiane EL BAKKALI	Soufiane EL BAKKALI
Women’s 3000m Steeplechase	Winfred YAVI	Faith CHEROTICH *

 

*Tokyo 25 Champion

Movement at Past Championships

Undoubtedly, 21 new world #1's seems like a large number, but how does this compare to previous years of the world rankings? Since the world rankings were introduced, Tokyo 25 had the second highest number of World #1 changes as a result of the World Athletics Championships or Olympic Games, with each championship’s impact shown in Table 4 below. Interestingly, the championship with the most movement was the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (held in 2021 due to COVID-19).

Significant world rankings movement can be expected because of a World Championships or Olympic Games. To highlight the importance of a global championship without overweighting, World Athletics will include the previous championship in events with a 12-month ranking period, even if it is outside of the usual 12-month window. However, the moment a new championship enters the rankings, the previous one expires for the 12-month events and placing scores are downgraded for 18-month events.

Table 4

 

Year	Number of world #1 changes (out of 44)
2019	11 (out of 42)
2020	No Championships Contested
2021	24 (out of 42)
2022	18
2023	12
2024	12
2025	21

 

When Rankings and Results Diverge

One critique that the world rankings face is the discrepancy between who is ranked first in an event and who finishes first at the global championships that year. For instance, newly crowned world champions did not sit at the top of the world rankings in 16 out of the 44 individual events contested at Tokyo 25. In fact, six new athletes ascended to a number one rank without even winning their individual event.

Without an understanding of how the world rankings system works, this may not make sense. However, knowing that many events are based on an athlete’s top five performances throughout the season, we see that the world rankings rewards consistency at high level meets throughout the season. Therefore, athletes that do not compete often at big competitions are usually not rewarded with a high world ranking, or they potentially lack a ranking altogether. There may be a lot of consistency in an athlete’s results scores, but placing scores greatly value top positions at high level meets. While this article focused on the top athletes in each event, the importance of high placing scores pervades for all elite athletes.

More details on rankings, results, and scenarios can be found on the World Athletics website. You can also experiment with my World Athletics Rankings Dashboard & Calculator or World Rankings Over Time Dashboard, hosted exclusively on USATF Campus.

About the Author

Lia Skoufos is a Sports Scientist at USATF specializing in throwing events. She holds a BS in Kinesiology from the University of Illinois Chicago and MS in Sport and Exercise Analytics from Marquette University and supports a range of analytics-based projects at USATF. In addition to her work with the throws group, she focuses on creating data-driven visuals and bridging the gap between technical analytics and practical applications by translating complex information into clear, actionable insights for coaches, athletes, and all USATF Campus members.