by Lia Skoufos, MS
This article is a part of a USATF Campus exclusive series to help understand the World Athletics Rankings. For track fans and elite athletes alike, this series aims to provide clarity, analysis, and education on all things World Rankings, and what they mean for Team USATF. For more information on how the World Rankings system works, see this article.
From September 22-29, two U.S. athletes in the top 100 of their respective events had the biggest absolute improvement to their World Rankings, each improving by 5 spots. Neither athlete who improved by 5 spots raced in the past week. Rather, each benefitted from events expiring on other athletes’ ranking scores. As most track and field athletes enter the offseason, world rankings for many events should see little fluctuation, with the exception being for the fall road racing season. The other possibility, as exhibited here, is that events with an 18-month ranking period see competitions from March 2025 expiring, which led to these improvements. Both Conner Mantz and Chloe Scrimgeour improved by 5 spots in the 10,000m world rankings, and they did so because of one major competition exiting the ranking period: The TEN in San Juan Capistrano, California in 2025. In a men’s race where the top five finishers ran under 27 minutes for 10,000m, many people relied on a fast time to be one of the two performances required for their ranking score. Similarly on the women’s side, seven athletes ran under 31 minutes for 10,000m. With the expiration of this competition, Conner Mantz benefitted by improving from 37th to 32nd and 23-year-old Chloe Scrimgeour improved from 89th to 84th. When assessing improvement based on percentage increase in ranking (e.g. 2nd to 1st is a 50% improvement as is moving from 30th to 15th), Conner Mantz’s climb from 37th to 32nd is a 13.5% improvement, giving him percentage mover’s honors as well. 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 and World Rankings Over Time Dashboard, hosted exclusively on USATF Campus.
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.