When I posted this yesterday, I began with, "I offer this list with no little trepidation. Since it has nothing to do with the pole vault, I'm way over my head before I start." As it turned out, my fears were well founded. Somehow, in transferring the 2000 outdoor data from the original list to the combined one I used for sorting, I managed to fail to paste in an entire screen of the best of those marks. Please accept my apologies and please erase that mess from your files. I hope this copy is better. Thanks to Ben Hall, Martin Dixon and Malmo, for alerting me to problems in the original data. RR Curiosity about three things got me into this fix. I wondered whether the standards for the 1500m would qualify about the same number of athletes as did the standards for the pole vault lists I posted earlier. I wondered whether the IAAF Top Lists would be easier or less easy to work with than Mirko Jalava's World Lists. And, in view of a brief thread last week about world championship selection procedures, I wondered what the field for the 1500m would look like it consisted solely of, say, the top 16 qualifiers, instead of national representatives. The answer to the first of those questions is that, even now, the selection standards seem to slightly favor 1500m runners over jumpers (104 qualifiers in the 1500m, compared to 90 in the men's vault--probably not an important difference at this point). I say "even now," because sorting through the lists from 2000 indoor to 2001 outdoor, it was readily apparent that there's lots of running to be done before the 1500m list is complete. Only 18 of the 104 qualifiers have better marks thus far in 2001 than they had in 2000. The answer to the second question is that I found Mirko's lists slightly easier to use for this purpose than those of the IAAF. That's because the "Top Lists," like Peter Matthews' ATFS rankings, combine several best performances of the top athletes with single performances in depth. Both sources were much more difficult for me than in the vault lists. These 1500m guys have some l-o-n-g, complicated names, most unfamiliar to me. That also means there will be more typos that I didn't recognize. As always, corrections will be appreciated, but--be kind. Finally, I've appended a list of the athletes who would be those selected for a championship field of the best 16 in the world, based on their best performances since 1 January 2000, irrespective of nationality. That's essentially outdoor bests last year and this: only 1 of the 104 qualifiers produced his best mark on the boards. Thanks to Mirko Jalava <http://www.tilastopaja.net/> and the IAAF Stat Section <http://www.iaaf.org/Results/index.asp> for use of their data, to Ottavio Castellini for help in navigating the IAAF site, and to Michalis Nikitaridis for letting me know that the A and B standards can be found on his site <http://www.athletix.net/>. Cheers, Roger Current Qualifiers for the World Championship 1500m: (Note that each nation may enter not more than three, and if entering more than one, all must meet the A standard.) 3.30.78 A Ali Saidi-Sief ALG 2001o 3.33.07 A Kamal Boulahfane ALG 2000o 3.33.40 A Mohamed Khaldi ALG 2000o 3.38.27 B Craig Mottram AUS 2000o 3.34.69 A Günther Weidlinger AUT 2000o 3.36.14 A Mohammed Mourhit BEL 2000o 3.34.97 A Hudson Santos de Souza BRA 2000o 3.31.71 A Kevin Sullivan CAN 2000o 3.37.08 B Branko Zorko CRO 2000o 3.31.48 A Andrés Manuel Díaz ESP 2000o 3.31.48 A José Antonio Redolat ESP 2000o 3.36.63 B Juan Carlos Higuero ESP 2000o 3.37.25 B Reyes Estévan ESP 2001i 3.33.14 A Hailu Mekonnen ETH 2000o 3.35.67 A Berhanu Alemu ETH 2000o 3.36.33 B Daniel Zegeye ETH 2000o 3.32.01 A Driss Maazouzi FRA 2000o 3.32.05 A Mehdi Baala FRA 2000o 3.33.89 A Nadir Bosch FRA 2000o 3.36.28 B Aléxis Abraham FRA 2000o 3.36.60 B Abdelkader Chékhémani FRA 2000o 3.36.80 B Ismail Sghyr FRA 2000o 3.36.83 B Fouad Chouki FRA 2000o 3.36.90 B Saïd Chébil FRA 2001o 3.37.62 B Mickaël Damian FRA 2000o 3.37.73 B Smail Sghir FRA 2001o 3.37.75 B Samir Benfarés FRA 2000o 3.37.90 B Bouabdallah Tahri FRA 2001o 3.34.70 A John Mayock GBR 2000o 3.34.93 A Anthony Whiteman GBR 2000o 3.36.18 A Andrew Graffin GBR 2000o 3.37.34 B Kevin McKay GBR 2000o 3.37.75 B Jonathon McCallum GBR 2000o 3.36.71 B Dirk Heinze GER 2000o 3.34.91 A Mark Carroll IRL 2000o 3.36.30 B James Nolan IRL 2000o 3.38.28 B Gareth Turnbull IRL 2001o 3.37.47 B Andrea Abelli ITA 2000o 3.28.21 A Noah Ngeny KEN 2000o 3.28.51 A Bernard Lagat KEN 2000o 3.30.73 A Benjamin Kipkurui KEN 2000o 3.31.02 A William Chirchir KEN 2000o 3.32.76 A Benson Koech KEN 2000o 3.32.93 A Laban Rotich KEN 2000o 3.33.04 A John Kobowen KEN 2000o 3.34.14 A Japheth Kimutai KEN 2000o 3.34.29 A Paul Mwangi KEN 2000o 3.34.79 A John Kibowen KEN 2000o 3.35.16 A Cornelius Chirchir KEN 2000o 3.35.16 A Shadrack Korir KEN 2001o 3.35.25 A Peter Biwott KEN 2000o 3.35.60 A Isaac Sang KEN 2000o 3.35.66 A James Koskei KEN 2000o 3.35.67 A Martin Keino KEN 2000o 3.35.68 A William Tanui KEN 2000o 3.36.00 A Richard Geemi KEN 2000o 3.36.08 A Musa Kimeli KEN 2000o 3.36.17 A Paul Bitok KEN 2000o 3.36.38 B David Lelei KEN 2000o 3.36.62 B Sammy Rono KEN 2000o 3.37.12 B Edwin Maranga KEN 2000o 3.37.24 B Bernard Barmasai KEN 2000o 3.37.24 B Reuben Kosgei KEN 2000o 3.37.46 B Luke Kipkosgei KEN 2000o 3.37.62 B William Yiampoy KEN 2000o 3.37.72 B Harrison Makau KEN 2000o 3.37.74 B John Kosgei KEN 2000o 3.38.27 B Daniel Gachara KEN 2001o 3.27.21 A Hicham El Guerrouj MAR 2000o 3.33.92 A Youssef Baba MAR 2000o 3.34.41 A Adil Kaouch MAR 2000o 3.34.85 A Mohamed Said El Wardi MAR 2000o 3.35.78 A Mohammed Amyn MAR 2000o 3.36.02 A Abdelkader Hachlaf MAR 2001o 3.37.09 B Salah Ghazi MAR 2000o 3.38.04 B Hamid El Mouaziz MAR 2001o 3.34.44 A Marko Koers NED 2000o 3.38.11 B Gert-Jan Liefers NED 2001o 3.37.83 B Leszek Zblewski POL 2001o 3.32.60 A Rui Silva POR 2000o 3.37.25 B Manuel Damido POR 2000o 3.38.03 B Luís Feiteira POR 2000o 3.38.30 B Mohamed Suleiman QAT 2000o 3.36.30 B Johan Botha RSA 2000o 3.32.28 A Vyacheslav Shabunin RUS 2000o 3.38.16 B Alexis Sharangabo RWA 2000o 3.38.00 B Mohamed Ibrahim Aden SOM 2000o 3.35.88 A Peter Philipp SUI 2001o 3.34.96 A Ali Hakimi TUN 2000o 3.35.86 A Julius Achon UGA 2000o 3.37.10 B Ivan Geshko UKR 2001o 3.33.59 A Steve Holman USA 2000o 3.35.11 A Michael Stember USA 2000o 3.35.21 A Gabriel Jennings USA 2000o 3.36.15 A David Krummenacker USA 2000o 3.36.70 B Jason Pyrah USA 2000o 3.36.74 B Jason Lunn USA 2000o 3.37.05 B Brian Berryhill USA 2001o 3.37.48 B Seneca Lassiter USA 2000o 3.37.63 B Andrew Downin USA 2001o 3.37.94 B Paul McMullen USA 2001o 3.38.26 B Alan Webb USA 2001o 3.38.37 B Matt Holthaus USA 2000o 3.37.52 B Darko Radomirovic YUG 2000o ----- World Championships 1500m field, if selection was based on 16 best times during the qualifying period since 1 January 2000: 3.27.21 A Hicham El Guerrouj MAR 2000o 3.28.21 A Noah Ngeny KEN 2000o 3.28.51 A Bernard Lagat KEN 2000o 3.30.73 A Benjamin Kipkurui KEN 2000o 3.30.78 A Ali Saidi-Sief ALG 2001o 3.31.02 A William Chirchir KEN 2000o 3.31.48 A Andrés Manuel Díaz ESP 2000o 3.31.48 A José Antonio Redolat ESP 2000o 3.31.71 A Kevin Sullivan CAN 2000o 3.32.01 A Driss Maazouzi FRA 2000o 3.32.05 A Mehdi Baala FRA 2000o 3.32.28 A Vyacheslav Shabunin RUS 2000o 3.32.60 A Rui Silva POR 2000o 3.32.76 A Benson Koech KEN 2000o 3.32.93 A Laban Rotich KEN 2000o 3.33.04 A John Kobowen KEN 2000o
