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 October 20-27, one U.S. athlete in the top 100 of their respective event had the biggest absolute improvement to their World Ranking, improving by 21 spots. Before this past weekend, Emily Venters had only traveled outside the U.S. to compete once before, when she represented Team USATF at the 2018 IAAF World U20 Championships in Tampere, Finland. In her second overseas business trip, Venters comes home with a new personal best in the half marathon and honors as the top U.S. finisher at the Medio Marathon Valencia Trinidad Alfonso Zurich. Her previous personal best was 1:08:48 set at the Aramco Houston Half Marathon in 2025. Now, Venters is tied as the 13th fastest U.S. performer in history with a time of 1:07:37. This performance in Valencia improves her rank in the women’s road running event group from 83rd to 62nd, replacing her run at the United Airlines NYC Half in her ranking score. 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), Emily Venters also had the biggest improvement at 25%. 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.