The charts summarize the number of athletes each country placed in the
world top 100 rankings for 2000 (plus ties) and the highest-ranked of
these. Since one or two placings may represent only exceptional
individuals, rather than national program strength, I've truncated the
lists to three placings or more. The data base drawn upon is the world
list from Mirko Jalava's web site <http://www.tilastopaja.com/>.
MEN'S LONG JUMP 2000 WOMEN'S LONG JUMP 2000
Country Top 100 Highest Country Top 100 Highest
United States 23 2 United States 17 3
France 8 18 Russia 11 2
Cuba 5 1 China 7 9
China 5 29 Jamaica 5 28
Germany 4 25 Kazakhstan 5 39
Canada 4 27 Ukraine 4 4
Italy 4 72 Germany 4 7
Australia 3 3 Great Britain 4 38
Ukraine 3 6 France 3 18
Russia 3 8 Romania 3 19
Greece 3 41 Greece 3 22
Armenia 3 43 Canada 3 52
37 countries represented 32 countries represented
100th = 7.91m = 25' 11 1/4" 100th = 6.46m = 21' 2 1/4"
MEN'S TRIPLE JUMP 2000 WOMEN'S TRIPLE JUMP 2000
Country Top 103 Highest Country Top 100 Highest
Russia 12 4 Russia 17 1
United States 12 11 China 14 14
Cuba 9 3 Ukraine 7 4
France 6 24 United States 6 48
Great Britain 5 1 Cuba 5 10
Bulgaria 4 8 Romania 5 12
China 4 35 Jamaica 5 38
Italy 3 2 Bulgaria 3 2
Germany 3 6 Greece 3 21
Greece 3 12 Italy 3 42
Brazil 3 48 France 3 69
42 countries represented 34 countries represented
100th = 16.40m = 53' 9 1/2" 100th = 13.64m = 44' 9"
When I first started keeping track of national depth on the world list,
after the 1996 Olympics, my primary interest was in trying to identify
"centers of coaching excellence" of the sort represented by the sprinters
of Santa Monica TC, Maurice Houvion's French vaulters, or more recently by
HSI. I found locating most such clusters to be frustrated by the sheer
weight of population and national wealth factors in determining top-100
numbers.
The men's triple-jump data remind me of that original interest, for two
reasons. I think of the triple as one of the more technical events, where
good coaching and event-specific weight training should make a big
difference. For the top 100 athletes to include representation from 42
countries tends to argue a greater importance of physical ability than of
coaching. On the other hand, though, the Cuban data may present an example
of coaching effectiveness. For a country with 1/25 the population of the
U.S. to have three-quarters as many triple jumpers in the top-100 world
rankings suggests that somebody in Cuba knows a lot about coaching the
event. Can anyone shed any light on the matter?
