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Swiss track and field meetings are the best in the world

Switzerland might be best known for producing the best watches and finest chocolates, but in the athletics world they have a reputation for hosting the top international track and field meetings.

That’s not just based on opinion either, it’s a proven fact according to athletics rankings website All-Athletics.com. They use a highly scientific formula which determines the top 12 events from each meeting, based on the best five results in each discipline. Those 72 results in total are assigned points using the IAAF scoring tables, which gives each meeting a ‘results score’.

To determine each competition’s overall score, the results score is added to a ‘participation score’, which awards points to the number of top-ranked athletes – as well as world and Olympic champions – who take part in each meeting.

For the 2012 season, the Athletissima Diamond League meeting in Lausanne came out on top in the competition rankings, one place ahead of the Weltklasse Diamond League in Zurich.

This year’s Lausanne Diamond League was highlighted by an incredible high jump competition where Mutaz Essa Barshim defeated Olympic champion Ivan Ukhov with a world-leading 2.39m, with Britain’s Robbie Grabarz equalling the UK outdoor record (2.37m) in third. There were also meeting records from Yohan Blake in the 100m (9.69) and Usain Bolt in the 200m (19.58).

There was great depth in other events too, including four men over 5.80m in the pole vault, four women under 11 seconds in the 100m and four women under 54 seconds in the 400m hurdles – all of which helped boost Lausanne’s competition ranking.

The Prefontaine Classic in Eugene was third on the competition rankings, while the Van Damme Memorial in Brussels – which was graced by Aries Merritt’s world record in the 110m hurdles – was fourth overall.

But the British-based Diamond League meetings were well down the list, perhaps affected by the fact that the fields aren’t as deep in quality compared to the likes of the Lausanne or Zurich meetings.

The Aviva London Grand Prix, the only Diamond League meeting with two full days of track and field action, just made it into the top 10 in ninth place, while the Aviva Birmingham Grand Prix was a few places behind in 12th place. Just two Diamond League meetings – Shanghai and New York – scored less than Birmingham.

Outside of the Diamond League series, the top meeting was Berlin’s ISTAF, a few places ahead of the Ostrava Golden Spike.

Competition rankings 2012

Meeting – Competition score – (results score)

1. Athletissima, Lausanne – 94,475 (86,665)
2. Weltklasse, Zürich – 93,932 (85,852)
3. Prefontaine Classic, Eugene – 93,843 (86,438)
4. Van Damme Memorial, Brussels – 93,509 (86,374)
5. Golden Gala, Rome – 93,167 (85,622)
6. Herculis, Monaco – 92,717 (86,432)
7. Diamond League, Doha – 92,677 (86,142)
8. Meeting AREVA, Paris – 92,371 (85,891)
9. Aviva Grand Prix, London – 92,341 (85,216)
10. DN Galan, Stockholm – 92,179 (85,049)
11. ExxonMobil Bislett Games, Oslo – 91,432 (84,952)
12. Aviva Grand Prix, Birmingham – 90,931 (83,726)
13. adidas Grand Prix, New York – 90,810 (85,045)
14. ISTAF, Berlin – 89,984 (84,224)
15. Golden Spike, Ostrava – 88,912 (83,922)
16. Samsung Diamond League, Shanghai – 88,859 (83,449)

Source: All-Athletics.com.

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