Associate professor, PhD O.M. Mirzoev¹
PhD O.V. Kalinina^{2      
1}Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism (GTsOLIFK), Moscow
²Moscow State Institute of Culture, Moscow

Keywords: XIV/ XV World Championship in Athletics, Olympic Games, unofficial team standings, medal, country, results, forecast

Introduction

The XIV World Championship in Athletics held August 2013 in Russia and the XV World Championship in Athletics held August 2015 in China may be viewed as summarizing the world athletic accomplishments for the closing Olympic cycle of October 2013 through August 2016. Knowing the individual and team accomplishments of the world best athletes in the above formal international competitions, sport analysts may predict with a great degree of confidence both the would-be top three nations and the potential strongest contenders who are most likely to compete for the highest unofficial team standings on the medal table in the upcoming 2016 Olympic Games in Brazil to be held August 12-21. Therefore, the results of the two World Championships in Athletics held for the current Olympic four-year cycle may give good grounds for certain forecasts for the Olympic year of 2016.

It should be noted that the World Athletics Championships held once in two years as summer odd-year events welcoming athletes from virtually every IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federations) member country of the world (213) are fully compliant with the Olympic Game schedule including 24 men’s and 23 women’s events. In contrast to some other events like, for instance, the Athletics Indoor Winter Championships held early spring and including 13 men’s and 13 women’s events, these top competitions generate the necessary sport statistics for fully-fledged analysis of not only every individual athletic performance (and the performance variation with time when required) but the team performance of the top national contenders. Team accomplishments on the whole are largely viewed as a key factor of influence on the “sports queen” development vector for the four-year cycle.

In the summer periods when the IAAF schedule offers no global events, the leading athletes may compete in the continental championship and some other high-ranking events. These events, however, are in fact less indicative of the real team standings on the world rating list. Therefore, it is only the results of the two latest outdoor World Athletics Championships that may provide some basis for forecasts of the national team accomplishments in the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil. 

It may be pertinent to remind in this context that the first outdoor (summer) World Athletics Championship was held 1983 in Helsinki, Finland and since then had been held once in four years till 1993. But the event was so popular by that time that the IAAF had to make a decision on the championships being held once in two years starting from 1995.

 Objective of the study was to analyze the final unofficial team standings in the two latest (2013 and 2015) outdoor World Championship in Athletics to identify chances of the global athletic powers in the track and field events in the run-up to the XXXI Olympic Games.

Study results and discussion. Scoreboards and team performance data of the Moscow and Beijing World Championships provide an insight to the global situation in athletics on the eve of the Olympic Games that may be summarized as follows.

The XV World Championship in China showed that the US and Russia may be challenged in their role of the top global athletic powers in the Olympic team total standings by a few contenders as demonstrated by the team accomplishments of the Kenyan and Jamaican athletes (see Table 1 hereunder).

Table 1. Top ten teams of the XV World Championship 2015 in Beijing: track and field events altogether

Note: G, S, B mean gold, silver and bronze medals

The impressive success of the two African nations that appear to be seriously disadvantaged in terms of area and resources (particularly the economic and demographic ones) was an important message for many teams including the leading contenders for the title of an unofficial team winner in the track and field event; it became clear that the global balance of powers in athletic sports is gradually changing and there is always a chance for wins as has been demonstrated by the team successes of Kenya and Jamaica in the last few World Championships. The US team, a number one contender for the title of a team winner, for the first time since 1983 in the history of the World Summer Championships came the third to the finishing line; although on the medal table the US athletes were again ahead of all the medal winners. The situation for the US team was in fact the same in the XIV World Championship 2013 in Moscow where it won 25 medals (see Table 2 hereunder).

Table 2. Top ten teams of the XIV World Championship 2013 in Moscow: track and field events altogether

The team performance of the Russian squad with its ninth place on the team total scoreboard was much worse than in the XIV World Championship 2013 in Moscow where the team was number one with its 7 gold, 4 silver and 6 bronze medals among the 38 medal-winner countries. This was considered a disappointing failure in the Russian team performance record. The sport chronicles report the similar losses far back in 1995 and 1997 World Championships in Goteborg (Sweden) and Athens (Greece) where the national team was only the 11^th (1+4+7) and 9^th (1+4+3), respectively. It should be noted that in both of these cases, however, the national athletes performed notably better in the total medal scores. Later on, in the period of 1999 through 2007, the Russian national team had always been ranked among the top three athletic squads of the planet (see Table 3). In the modern history of the track and field sports in our country (since January 1993) the Russian national team has been twice nominated the world strongest squad in athletics (see Tables 2 and 3).

Table 3. The Russian national team standings on the unofficial team scoreboard of the medal-winner nations for the period of 1993-2011, in the track and field disciplines altogether

We believe that many comments and statements made by quite a few sport specialists (including the insufficiently competent ones) on the Russian squad’s failure in the XV World Championship in China were premature to say the least. It is not fully clear what they mean by “failure” knowing that the team came back home with four medals; and we can only guess what could be their reaction if the team were back winning no one medal as this would be the only case to panic and call the situation a failure of the national team.

The team win of the African athletes in the XV World Championship came somewhat unexpected on the face of it, but the sport records and performance analysis of the Kenyan national teams competing in the World Championships in the new millennium are indicative of the highest sport mastery of the national teams on the whole and the individual athletes in particular.

The 2009 and 2011 World Championships in Berlin and Daegu expressly demonstrated the unexpected hegemony of the Kenyan mid- and long-distance runners who were almost as good at these distances as the US athletes in the sprint events. Athletes from the Kenyan national team demonstrated the highest will to win in every sport discipline where they used to dominate and win World Championship medals in. The team should have been considered among the top contenders for the highest team title prior to the competition.

It should be noted that only three of the eight World Championships that have been held in the new millennium were relatively unsuccessful for the Kenyan national team is the sense that it fell beyond the top three prize-winners (coming the 4^th in 2003, the 6^th in 2005 and the 4^th in 2013 in the unofficial team totals). It may be called an outstanding track record considering the fact that it was only in the 2001 World Championship in Edmonton that the African athletes made their first appearance as newcomer contenders for the titles and won the 3^rd prize.

It is a matter of common knowledge today that the Kenyan athletes, both males and females, win most of their medals in the endurance-intensive athletic events. The XV World Championship in China was almost no exclusion from this regularity for the athletes from the African continent as they won 87.5% of their medals in their special mid- and long-distance track events, 3000 m hurdles and the marathon race. However, they managed to expand their dominance on a few other events that seemed falling beyond the list of preferences of the African athletes before that – we mean the 400 m hurdles and javelin throws where they won the first prizes for the first time. This might mean that it is high time for the old traditions and priorities to be gradually revised.

Second to the Kenyan team in China was the Jamaican national squad. It may be pertinent to remind that it was back in 2005 World Championship in Helsinki that the Jamaican national team made the headlines by taking the 4^th position on the team total scoreboard with its 10 (1+6+3) medals. It was since the 2007 World Championship that the Jamaican athletes have been always ranked among the top five nations in the team standings of the World Championships; and it was in the years of 2009, 2011 and 2013 that they were among the prize-winners in the unofficial team totals. This means that for the last decade the team skyrocketed to the top positions in the global athletic sports.

Unlike the Kenyan runners of both sexes who dominate in the endurance-intensive track and field events, the Jamaican school of athletics makes its main emphasis (and the highest stakes) on sprint, hurdles and relay races [1]. It may be underlined in this context that the national sprinters and hurdlers won 11 of the 12 medals the Jamaican team was awarded by in China; and we would particularly mention the bronze medal in shot-push surprisingly won by the team since it is an absolutely extraordinary accomplishment for the Jamaican athletics.

Since the national team was reinforced by such outstanding sprint masters as U. Bolt (21.08.1986) and S.A. Fraser-Pryce (27.12.1986), its competitive performance standards have soared to an absolutely new level. The impressive team accomplishments in the last two World Championships of the current Olympic cycle (and the previous cycle too, by the way, as the performance standards of these elite athletes have long been at the top-class level in sprint) have proved once again that it is only due to this couple that the national team can confidently compete with the US, Kenyan, Russian, Ethiopian and some other top teams. The role of these two athletes may be illustrated by the fact that they won five out of seven golden medals for their national team in China. The situation was much the same in the XIV World Championship 2013 in Moscow where U. Bolt and S.A. Fraser-Pryce won the 100 m and 200 m runs and then heavily contributed to the team win in the 4х100 m relay race winning the gold medals. The analysis of the U. Bolt’s and S.A. Fraser-Pryce’s latest track records is indicative of their virtually unchallengeable dominance over the potential contenders in the current Olympic cycle, and it should be noted that this domination trend has been quite persistent for the Jamaican national team for the last few years.

It is disputable, however, that in the upcoming new Olympic cycle of October 2016 through August 2020 the Jamaican national team on the whole and its sprinters in particular may be still as strong as now. When U. Bolt leaves the sport (he confirmed his intention to leave the track following the top events of 2017) and S.A. Fraser-Pryce follows suit, the remaining team leaders will unlikely be capable of reaching the top sport mastery levels that were usual for these two phenomenal athletes (with the record books of the 2013 and 2015 World Championships giving good grounds for this statement).

As far as the US national team is concerned, it is unlikely reasonable to speak about its performance sagging at this juncture based only on its relatively unsuccessful performance in the 2015 Beijing World Championship. The US team is very likely to hold its position of a favourite in the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil as demonstrated by the team track record in the current Olympic cycle (see Tables 1 and 2). Moreover, the US athletes from men’s and women’s national teams are quite competitive in events other than their special track and field disciplines. Normally the US athletes are the most strong competitors in sprint runs, relay races and hurdles – as demonstrated, for instance by their success in the 2105 Beijing World Championship when they won 66.7% of the medals (compared to 60% of the total stock of medals in the Moscow World Championship). In addition, the US team was also very successful in some field disciplines including some jumps and throws, and these successes give sound grounds to expect good results from the US competitors in the Rio de Janeiro World Championship. 

One more team that is much similar to the Kenyans in giving the top priority to the endurance-intensive track and field sports is the Ethiopian one, and it is ranked high among the potential competitors for the Kenyan athletes in these sport disciplines. It have always been the long-distance and marathon races that brought medals to the Ethiopian athletes, and the national team of this country traditionally focuses on and dominates in a few track events, mostly the long-distance and marathon races.

In contrast to the Kenyan athletes traditionally strong in the mid-distance runs, the team standing of the Ethiopians in the Beijing World Championship was not that low versus the Moscow results (see Tables 1 and 2). Being specialized and highly competitive in a few events, this African nation has always been ranked among the top ten teams on the unofficial team total table. Following the 1993 breakdown of the former Ethiopia into two newly independent states of Ethiopia and Eritrea, the new Ethiopian team has been still highly competitive unlike the Eritrean squad that still fails to compete at the same level as their former compatriots.

It was the UK national team that was the first in the unofficial team standings as a result of the XV World Championship: albeit it performed only slightly better than in the preceding World Championship, it still managed to step up by three positions on the medal table. Nevertheless, we would not call it a national team success on the whole for the reason that it was the same gifted mid-distance runner Mo Farah who won the golden medals in the 5000 m and 10000 m events in Moscow and Beijing in fact. The individual accomplishments of this athlete in the current Olympic cycle give reasons to consider him a number one contender for the titles in Brazil as he may secure two medals for the UK national team. Following the Brits are the Polish athletes who managed to win the 6^th position on the unofficial team table for the first time in their sport history. The Polish team (to be more exact, its men’s group) made great progress (1+2+0) on the medal table compared to its 11^th (1+1+0) place in Moscow World Championship two years before. It was due to the accomplishments of the athletic group that the Polish national team made such a great success that it may confidently compete with the Russian team in the upcoming 2016 European Championship.

It should be noted that it was in fact the Canadian national team that made the highest progress in its fight for the higher team standing when it moved up from the 21^st place of 2013 to the 7^th place of 2015. The Canadian men’s wins in pole jumps and high jumps came totally unexpected in fact. These two gold medals provided a heavy boost for the team position on the unofficial team total scoreboard. However, the Canadian national team was only once relatively successful in coming last in the pool of top ten teams in the 1983 World Championship in Helsinki; but it would be premature to pin high hopes on serious success of the athletes from this North American country in the upcoming Olympics.

It was for the fourth time in the history of Russian competition in the World Championships in Athletics that the national team failed to make it (in the XV World Championship 2015) to the top three unofficial team group on the medal table (it was the 11^th in 1995; the 9^th in 1997; and the 4^th in 2009). Success of the national athletes in the 2013 Moscow World Championship following the 2012 Olympic Games made the leading coaches and other sport specialists optimistic in planning and providing for further progress of the national team. The team performance of 2014, however, demonstrated that it had little chance to compete for the titles having lost most of its leading athletes who preferred to skip the major events of 2014 to get better prepared for the 2016 Olympics. As a result, the Russian team failed to make it to the top three team standings in the European Championship in Zurich – for the first time in its history of continental championships (though it was the third on the medal table of the event with its 22 medals won), although the Russian national team came second after the US in the 2014 Indoor World Championship.

The Beijing world athletic competitions demonstrated one more important team performance factor related to the team accomplishments in the men’s sprint and hurdles. This group of athletes was successful in the two last World Championships, and the success is particularly striking in view of the fact that Russian sprinters and hurdlers had never won medals before the 2013 World Championship [1]. In contrast to the men’s group, the women’s sprinters and hurdlers had to leave the Championship without medals – for the second time in the group history (the first failure was back in 1997). It should be noted that only two groups out of five contributed to the medal table of the national team at the event, namely the sprinters/ hurdlers group and jumpers group (see Table 4). 

Table 4. Russian champions and prize-winners of the XV (2015) World Championship in Athletics

  Note:

  ¹ – New Russian record and the personal best result

  ² – Personal best result

The medals won by the women athletes once again demonstrated the high standards and accomplishments of the Russian/ Soviet high jump school. Two Russian female athletes set their personal best records in the Beijing World Championship in Athletics: Maria Kuchina won the gold medal setting the personal best result; and Anna Chicherova made record as the only woman in the world who won medals in five successive World Championships (1+2+2 since the 2007 World Championship); moreover, Anna was the only one woman in the world who had qualified for seven World Championships in a row, from 2003 through 2015.

It was for the first time in the national team history, including the Soviet period, that a Russian hurdler (Sergey Shubenkov) won the gold medal of the World Championship setting a new Russian record and running the 110 m distance faster than the symbolic 13.00 seconds – and it again happened for the first time in this post-Soviet part of the world. Denis Kudriavtsev was the first in the national hurdles run history to win a silver medal of the World Championship setting a new Russian record (the latest and closest success dates back to 1983 when Soviet hurdler A. Kharlov won the 3^rd place in the track event with 49.03 s). The accomplishments of the national female high jumpers is something that we have almost got used to, but the latest successes of the men hurdlers make us optimistic about further progress of the team.    

It should be noted in this context, however, that the endurance-intensive events group, throw group and combined events group of the Russian national team won no medals in the championship. It was for the first time that the national team and the Russian Athletics Federation management decided to delegate no one race walker to the last World Championship despite the fact that this event had always yielded more medals to the team than the others. It happened due to the drug-use probes of a few candidates for the national team. The Russian national team competed in 32 (14 men’s and 18 women’s events) out of 47 events of the Beijing World Championship compared to the 46 active events (24 men’s and 22 women’s events) of the 2013 Moscow World Championship. (Note that the Russian athletes failed to qualify for some events based on the newest IAAF qualification criteria approved on the eve of the Championship; however, Russia had the right to claim additional competitors in these events as a host country). The national team composition in the Beijing Championship versus the Moscow Championship was 51.7% new for male and 62.2% new for female athletes).  

Performance statistics of the UK, Polish (particularly men athletes who heavily contributed to the team standing coming up on the team total scoreboard) and German (with a special contribution of female athletes) national teams that moved up in the world team rankings for the last two years since the Moscow World Championship, makes us be highly discretional in forecasting the Russian team performance in the continental championship scheduled only one and a half month prior to the Olympic Games in Brazil; and we believe that the national team coaches and managers need to be also very prudent in designing the training and conditioning strategy on the eve of these two major events.   

Overall, athletes from 43 countries of the world won medals of the XV World Championship in Beijing.

Coming first to the finish of the 2012 Olympic Games in London was the US national team that won 28 (9+12+7) medals in total ahead of the Russian national squad that was second on the medal table with its 17 (8+4+5) medals and obviously much lower on the scoreboard than its more successful rival. It were the Russian female athletes who heavily contributed to the team total second place and were ahead of the US women group in fact. The Jamaican national team won the 3^rd place on the unofficial medal table with its 12 (4+4+4) medals.

Conclusions

The analysis gives the grounds to expect that it is the US, Kenyan and Jamaican national teams that are most likely to be the top three team winners on the unofficial team total scoreboard of the Olympic Games in Brazil of August 12-21, 2016. The UK, German and Ethiopian teams may be the most serious competitors for the above. The unofficial team champion and prize-winners will have to win at least 5-7 gold medals. (Although we hold to the opinion that it is time to count all medals without breaking them down into the gold, silver and bronze ones).

The Russian national team, despite its underperformance in the XV World Championship as compared to its accomplishments in the XIV World Championship, may still compete for at least the 3-5 team total standing and has good chance to run up to the World Championship finals (i.e. come to the 1-8^th places) and compete for the medals in the following events: men’s 4x400 m relay race; men’s 110 m and 400 m hurdles; men’s jump events; men’s hammer throw event; men’s javelin throws; men’s combined events; women’s 400 m race; women’s 4x100 m and 4x400 m relay races; women’s mid-distance races; women’s jump events; and the women’s javelin and hammer throw events. The Russian men and women race walkers and women marathon racers are likely to come up to the top eight positions in the competitions.

Coming first to the finish of the 2012 Olympic Games in London was the US national team that won 28 (9+12+7) medals in total ahead of the Russian national squad that was second on the medal table with its 17 (8+4+5) medals; and it was the Jamaican national team that won the 3^rd place with its 12 (4+4+4) medals. The XV World Championship in Beijing closed its books for the scores and opened new books for the forecasts.

References

1. Mirzoev O.M. Sprinterskiy i bar'erny beg v XXI veke. K itogam XIV chempionata mira po legkoy atletike (Sprint and hurdles in the XXI century. By the end of XIV World Championship in Athletics) / O.M. Mirzoev // Izvestiya Tul'skogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta «Fizicheskaya kul'tura. Sport» (Bulletin of Tula state university "Physical Education. Sport"). – Tula: TGU (TSU), 2013. – Is. 3. – P. 122–130.
2. Mirzoev O.M. Sorevnovatel'naya deyatelnost' sil'neyshikh legkoatletov Rossii, Evropy i mira. Sprinterskiy i bar'erny beg (sorevnovatel'naya deyatel'nost' po itogam 2013 g.) (Competitive activity of the strongest athletes of Russia, Europe and world. Sprint and hurdles (competitive activity - results for 2013) / O.M. Mirzoev, V.M. Maslakov. – Voronezh: Nauchnaya kniga, 2014. – Is. 19. – P. 1–32.
3. Socha T. Evropeyskaya legkaya atletika na Olimpiyskikh igrakh v Pekine-2008 i v Londone-2012 (European athletics at the Olympic Games 2008 in Beijing and 2012 in London) / T. Socha, S. Socha, T. Skowronek // Teoriya i praktika fiz. kultury. – 2013. – № 1. – P. 68–70.
4. IAAF World Championships. Beijing. Statistics Handbook / Editor Mark Butler. – 2015. – P. 1-332.
5. Electronic resource. http://www.iaaf.org.

Corresponding author: prorector@mail.ru

Abstract

In the present work the researchers analyze the results of the two ("summer")Athletics World Championships (2013 and 2015), that took place in the current Olympic cycle. In particular, there were analyzed the results of the unofficial team standings, where places were allocated based on medals (gold, silver and bronze), and the number of scored points given to the countries, which athletes were in the list of finalists in the disciplines (who took from the 1st to the 8th places). The performance of the teams, that took the first three places by the results of the Beijing world championship (2015) was thoroughly evaluated and a comparative analysis of the performances of individual teams with similar data obtained at the end of the forum of representatives of the "queen of sports" in Moscow (2013) was provided. In addition, the researchers analyzed the achievements of individual teams, including European ones, that managed to improve their position in comparison with the results of the Moscow World Championship. A special place in the work was given to the performance of the domestic team. There was made an attempt to make a forecast for the upcoming Olympic Games in Brazil, the teams in which have enough chances to take the lead at the end of the competition held every four years.