Almanac 2012 now available

Athletics New Zealand’s statistical handbook Almanac 2012 has recently been published and is now available for purchase.

Compiled and edited by Stephen Hollings & Simon Holroyd, Almanac 2012 has 148 pages of statistics and information about the 2012 athletics year. Rankings lists, All-time lists, National Records set in 2012, Lists of National Records, New Zealand representative athletes in 2012, International results, Internationally ranked athletes, National Champions in 2012 and National Results are all detailed in the A5 size book.

Almanac 2012 is available at a cost of $30 (including packaging and postage within New Zealand) from Athletics New Zealand. It will also be available for purchase at the National Track & Field Championships in Auckland at the special championship price of $20.

Enhancements made to Rankings Lists website

A number of enhancements have been made to the Athletics New Zealand Rankings website. These enhancements include:

Athlete’s profile pages

The age of the athlete has been refined to show the age in years and days. Further, the list of best performances (since 2008) has been adjusted to take into account wind-aided performances. Also, and by far the biggest change has been made to include the yearly progression (since 2008) of the athlete’s best performance in each event. A facility to name the athlete’s coach, and any former coach/es has existed for a while. If I am advised of the name of the coach or coaches I will add these to the athlete’s profile.

Rankings Lists

The designation of performances accomplished indoors has been made clearer. The lists where there are wind-aided performances have been refined to show only wind-aided performances that are superior to non wind-aided performances. Only the best ten wind-aided performances are shown for each event on the lists, but all wind-aided performances continue to be shown in the athlete’s profile. One feature that needs to be reminded is the ability to display all performances that meet the minimum standard in the event. The default selection is listing by “Athletes”, but there is an alternative selection to display by “Performances”.

Records

The lists of age group records have been refined to include the appropriate hurdle/steeplechase height and throws implement weight used.

Future enhancements

Work is underway to create a web version that will display on hand-held/mobile devices. Further investigations are underway to make the all-time lists a “live list” i.e., where any future All-time performances are automatically included in the list. Finally, it is our intention in the future to automatically generate a list of all performances that have been added to the lists in “the last seven-day period”.

Policy on ranking performances from schools competitions

I am prepared to list performances from schools competitions providing that the competition is of a Regional or above standard. The competition must be held on a surveyed all-weather facility and have the required number of graded officials present. All times must be Fully Automated Timing (no hand times), and have accompanying wind readings for sprint, sprint hurdles and horizontal jumps events. Further, the throws implement weight used must be stated in the results for each throws event and the hurdle height used in the hurdles events should also be shown in the results. Only performances in the hurdles events and in the throws events that are accomplished with hurdle heights and throws implement weights that are used in the Athletics New Zealand age grade (not schools age grades) will be considered for ranking purposes. Finally, many schools athletes are not registered with Athletics New Zealand and therefore their performances cannot be listed.

Waikato BOP Championships Results

Unfortunately, technical problems were experienced with the Fully Automatic Timing (FAT) System at the Waikato BOP Championships on Saturday 23 February 2012 when a cable broke in the transducer. Men's and Women's 400 m, Men's 110 m Hurdles and Women's 100 m Hurdles and a Youth Girls 100 m races were affected. Although the FAT was started manually, and times were read from the photofinish image, the results cannot be considered for the Rankings Lists. IAAF Rule 165.15 states "A system which operates automatically at either the start or the finish, but not at both, shall be considered to produce neither Hand or Fully Automatic Times and shall not therefore be used to obtain official times. In this case, the times read on the image will not, under any circumstances, be considered as official, but the image may be used as a valid support in order to determine placings and adjust time intervals between athletes."

Records Ratified

The following performances have been ratified as New Zealand Records, and have been added to the lists of New Zealand Records hosted on this site.

Women U18 & U17 National

Men U19 National

Women U17 National

Women U17 National

Men U19 National =

Women U19 National

Listings updated after Potts, Cooks, Capital Classics and North Island Interprovincials.

Ranking lists qualifying performances by eligible athletes from the Potts Classic, Cooks Classic and Capital Classic as well as qualifying performances from the North Island Interprovincials have now been added. You should note however that some performances have not been added to the lists because there was inadequate detail in many of the results regarding, in particular, hurdle heights and throws weight implements used. Further, finishing position in many running events and in some field events were not sufficiently detailed enough – so in some cases the finishing position listed may not be the correct finishing place in the event. A number of athletes who had rankings list qualifying performances are not registered with Athletics New Zealand and therefore their performance is not included.

If athletes or their coaches feel that their performance/s from any of these meetings have not been listed or their finishing place has been incorrectly interpreted, please contact me through the Contact tab at the top of this page.

Change to Age Group names and Age Group names for Records in 2013

As a consequence of the change to the Athletics New Zealand By-laws regarding the naming of age group grades and age group names for Records, changes will be made to the Rankings Lists website from the 1^st January 2013.

Change to Age Group names

On the Rankings site, there will be three age grades for each gender:

Senior Men/Women – are athletes born in 1993 or before

Junior Men/Women – are athletes born in 1994 or 1995

Youth Men/Women – are athletes born in 1996, 1997, 1998 or after.

 Change to Age Group names for Records:

Note:  For a record to be recognised in an age grade the athlete shall be the correct age (or under) on the day on which the performance is achieved. [Note: Age records are based on actual age on the day of the performance, not the "competition age grade”].

Other Information

The By-law detailing the age groups, the minimum performances for ranking purposes 2013, and the 2013 year ages and throwing implements and hurdles specifications are shown by clicking on the Information tab at the top of this page.

The 2012 Ranking lists have been archived and can be viewed by clicking on the Archived/ All-Time lists tab at the top of this page.

Records Standards to National Records

As previously advised the Board of Athletics New Zealand have asked that all Record Standards be removed and be replaced by the best performance for the event and age. After a great deal of laborious and intensive research, my colleague Simon Holroyd, has been able to find “best performances” that are now to be considered as the National Record for the event and age. Despite his best endeavours there are some events where there is some doubt as to the validity of the “best performance” for this to be considered as a Record. Therefore for these events the Record will remain vacant until further work is undertaken to determine the “best performance”.

NOTE: For a record to be recognised in an age grade the athlete shall be the correct age (or under) on the day on which the performance is achieved.

[Note: Age records are based on actual age on the day of the performance, not the "competition age grade"]

Also please note that many (but not all) Centres use the competition age grade for their age records whilst others use the age on the day on which the performance was achieved.

The “new records” are:

M16

200m: 21.37 Mark Keddell Canterbury 15 January 1992

High Jump: 2.14 Glenn Howard Canterbury 21 March 1993

M18

1000m: 2:25.8 Gregory Nicholls Canterbury 4 March 1995 Christchurch

Hammer (6kg): 67.26 Matthew Bloxham North Harbour Bays 1 December 2012 North Shore

Javelin (800g): 76.68 Gavin Lovegrove Waikato 5 July 1986 Athens GRE

Decathlon (jnr implements): 7566 points Jordan Vandermade Auckland 19 February 2006 Palmerston North

M19

Hammer (6kg): 67.26 Matthew BloxhamNorth Harbour Bays 1 December 2012 North Shore

W16

300m Hurdles (762mm): 43.87 Sonia Scown Waikato 13 March 1988 Hamilton

W18

5000m: 16:06.47 Sonia Barry Taranaki 31 January 1988 Hastings

There is further investigation to be undertaken in the following events:

M16: 1000m, 3000m, Javelin (700 g), 4 x 100 m Relay, 4 x 400 m Relay

M18: Discus (1.75 kg), 10000 m Race Walk,

Open Women: 3000 m Race Walk

We have been unable to find any “best performances” for the following events:

Open Women: 20,000m track, 25,000m track, 30,000m track, One hour track, 4 x 800m Relay, Decathlon.

New Records Ratified

The following records have now been ratified and have been posted onto the NZ Records Page on this site.

Men 18 National

Men 18, 19 National

Men 18, 19 National

Men 18, National =

Men 16, 17, National,

Women 18, National

New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships performances listed

483 eligible ranking performances from the New Zealand Secondary Schools Championships held over the weekend (7th - 9th) in Dunedin have been posted on the Rankings Lists.

There are, however, a number of eligible performances that have not been listed because the athlete is not registered with Athletics New Zealand. Please also note that the Schools age grades do not align with Athletics New Zealand age grades on which the Rankings Lists are based. Further Schools athletes use different throws implement weights that do not necessarily align with Athletics New Zealand age grade specifications. Similar differences also apply to hurdle heights and distances.

Please let me know if there are any errors that I may have made in the listings from this competition.