Best Track & Field City in the World?
Posted November 10th, 2007 at 8:30 AM by Jimmie R. Markham
Section: News & Results, Track & Field
The Track & Field off-season is a little rough on us trackies. At least we can console ourselves with the fact that the indoor season is just a couple of months away. We can also take comfort in knowing that the statistics for the current season are just sitting there, waiting to be analyzed. Middle-distance is my specialty, so I will be crunching the numbers for those event over the next few weeks.
I was curious to know what city in the world is the “best” city for watching a world-class middle-distance event. I’m sure the readers of The Final Sprint will also want to know about the long distance track events, too, so I have also included those in this analysis. I went to my favorite statistics site, alltime-athletics.com, for the facts.
What does alltime-athletics consider to be world-class? They keep records for the following times, so these are the times that will go into determining the “fastest” track city for middle- and long-distance events:
800m: <1:45
1500m: <3:35
Mile: <3:55
3000m: <7:50
3000mSC: <8:25
5000m: <13:15
10000m: <28:00
First let's look at the top 10 cities for each individual middle- and long-distance event. Here are the Top 10 cities for the number of all-time world-class performances that have been run in each city for each event:
800m
Zürich, 197
Bruxelles, 90
Rieti, 89
Monaco, 84
Oslo, 81
Roma, 62
Köln, 59
Lausanne, 52
Berlin, 51
Athínai, 41
1500m
Zürich, 183
Bruxelles, 149
Monaco, 121
Oslo, 99
Roma, 92
Rieti, 92
Saint-Denis, 87
Stockholm, 73
Lausanne, 69
Berlin, 59
Mile
Oslo, 206
Berlin, 88
London, 81
Eugene, 70
Roma, 51
Zürich, 37
Bruxelles, 30
Stockholm, 30
Nice, 26
Lausanne, 23
3000m
Monaco, 199
Nice, 156
Oslo, 144
Köln, 142
Bruxelles, 137
London, 117
Lausanne, 107
Berlin, 91
Rieti, 80
Zürich, 76
3000m
Stockholm, 245
Roma, 195
Bruxelles, 190
Zürich, 173
Monaco, 165
Saint-Denis, 162
Helsinki, 141
Nice, 141
Athínai, 128
Berlin, 123
5000m
Roma, 164
Zürich, 143
Stockholm, 113
Oslo, 103
Berlin, 83
Saint-Denis, 69
Bruxelles, 55
London, 41
Heusden-Zolder, 40
Lausanne, 35
10000m
Bruxelles, 214
Oslo, 105
Hengelo, 98
Palo Alto, 69
Helsinki, 66
Stockholm, 62
Kobe, 55
Praha, 39
Walnut, 37
Barakaldo, 35
It should surprise nobody that European cities keep appearing on these lists. The IAAF, the world’s governing body of Track & Field, is located in Monaco. Most of the prestigious, high-paying meets are in Europe.
From this list of top-10 cities, I wanted to determine what cities had the most top-5 placements for each event. Here they are by event:
800m: (1st) Zürich, (2nd) Bruxelles, (3rd) Rieti, (4th) Monaco, (5th) Oslo
1500m: (1st) Zürich, (2nd) Bruxelles, (3rd) Monaco, (4th) Oslo, (5th) Roma
Mile: (1st) Oslo, (2nd) Berlin, (3rd) London, (4th) Eugene, (5th) Roma
3000m: (1st) Monaco, (2nd) Nice, (3rd) Oslo, (4th) Köln, (5th) Bruxelles
3000mSC: (1st) Stockholm, (2nd) Roma, (3rd) Bruxelles, (4th) Zürich, (5th) Monaco
5000m: (1st) Roma, (2nd) Zürich, (3rd) Stockholm, (4th) Oslo, (5th) Berlin
10000m: (1st) Bruxelles, (2nd) Oslo, (3rd) Hengelo, (4th) Palo Alto, (5th) Helsinki
From this list, we can give a score to each top 5 performance. First place gets 5 points, 2nd gets 4, 3rd gets 3, 4th gets 2 and 5th gets a single point.
So what city is the “fastest” in the world? It’s a tie. Brussels, Belgium and Oslo, Norway (with Zürich, Switzerland a close 3rd, just one point behind the other two cities) are the cities in which you can most likely watch a world-class time run in one of the in middle- or long-distance track events.
Here is the list of the “fastest” cities in the world, the ones that have hosted the most middle- and long-distance races of all time:
1. Bruxelles, 17
1. Oslo, 17
3. Zürich, 16
4. Monaco, 11
4. Roma, 11
6. Stockholm, 8
7. Berlin, 5
8. Nice, 4
9. Hengelo, 3
9. London, 3
9. Rieti, 3
12. Eugene, 2
12. Köln, 2
12. Palo Alto, 2
15. Helsinki, 1
Source: [alltime-athletics.com]
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Tags: brussels, fastest track and filed cities, IAAF, long distance, middle distance, Oslo, sole, track and field, Zurich
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The Final Sprint
[…] In an earlier post I wrote about my obsession need to think about my favorite sport – Track & Field (specifically, middle- and long-distance events) – even during the off-season. […]
November 10th, 2007 at 12:25 pm