Policies

Your privacy is critically important to MastersRankings. MastersRankings collects athletes’ birth dates and email addresses for exclusive use. Only authorized MastersRankings’ representatives have access to confidential information. MastersRankings will not share or sell your personal information.

The goal is to maintain a rankings list in any event where the list will be meaningful – many athletes within most age groups who focus on the event. For example, countries with thousands of athletes should have more than 20 athletes listed in most age groups. MastersRankings evaluates competition results throughout the year to assess whether a meaningful list can be compiled. Events deemed appropriate to rank will be added at the beginning of a year.

Only performances in events appearing in the pull-down menus are eligible for listing. Conversions for events cannot be used (i.e. 1600m to Mile or 1500m). Enroute times, if officially timed separately (FAT preferred) are eligible for listing (i.e. 1500m timed separately during 1 Mile).

Widely contested indoor events like 300m, 600m, 1000m are difficult to compile meaningful lists because the vast majority of available competition results for these are for open and college meets which do not include any age information. Results from Masters combined event competitions with 1000m are available but those performances are typically inferior to athletes’ performances at single event competitions and many of those athletes are not middle distance specialists. Ranking 1000m under these conditions would result in lists with proportionally slower times compared to 800m.

Based on age on the first day of a Track & Field / Athletics competition regardless of the age groups at that meet. This also applies to contests including multiple sports like Masters Games, State Games and Senior Olympics’ first day of T&F / Athletics competition.

Athletes’ nationality is based on their citizenship regardless of their residence. Athletes with multiple citizenships are eligible to be listed in each nations list on this site. Note: this policy may not comport with each nation’s policy. Please check with your National Governing Body.

Pre-scheduled, organized competitions run by qualified officials who ensure competition is in accordance with WMA or National Governing Body rules are eligible. MastersRankings is the sole arbiter for competition eligibility on this site.

FAT is a system connecting all timing components electronically including the starter’s signal, starter’s signal receiver, finish line camera and timing software. Non-FAT performances in events 200m and shorter are not eligible for this site’s official rankings lists. The precise difference between a non-FAT time and its precise time (that FAT will give) is not consistent. Since small differences in times can make a significant difference in a ranking, it is widely unfair to compare non-FAT performances in shorter distances. Effective 2016, performances for non-FAT, 300 and 400 meter races will be adjusted by the IAAF accepted standard of 0.24 seconds.

Effective 2016, only performances with less than or equal to 2m/s assistive wind in horizontal jumps and 200m and shorter running events will be included in this site’s World Rankings lists.

Note: we have not taken the time yet to have results with excessive wind removed from rankings lists. Results we insert list winds in a multitude of ways and we need to figure out how to practically manage all this data.

Relays are not ranked events and individual times from relays are not allowed in these lists.

Meet organizers, National Governing Bodies and athletes have until 1 month after the season closes (see below) to submit performances.

Note: this policy has not yet been implemented worldwide since the World and WMA Regional Rankings are in their infancy. It will take time to disseminate this policy and develop collaboration with the National Governing Bodies. US Citizens need to submit within the deadlines for inclusion in the published US rankings. MastersRankings, at its discretion, may elect to accept or reject performances after the submission deadline.

MastersRankings strives to finalize rankings World & WMA Regional within 3 months after a season ends (see below). Finalizing the rankings lists involves removing duplicates, correcting typos, further confirming meet eligibility and performance accuracy. It will take a while to coordinate with WMA Affiliates so each nation is well represented. This will ensure that the national rankings are complete on this site. When the policy of finalizing the rankings within 3 months of season end will take effect will depend on when worldwide collaboration is achieved.

US Top 25 rankings have been compiled on MastersRankings.com since 2003 and published in National Masters News (NMN). The goal has been to provide completed lists around 2 months after season end to NMN for publication. Compiling worldwide rankings and other factors has disrupted the normal cycle plus has identified that many people are not aware of the rankings nor our policies.

Outdoor rankings lists include performances contested outdoors either on a track for running events or a suitable field event facility. Events contested on an oversized indoor track are eligible for ranking in the outdoor list. Lists include performances between January 1 through December 31 each year.

Indoor rankings lists include performances contested indoors meeting WMA or National Governing Body indoor rules including track size. Performances on an oversized track and events contested outdoors are not eligible. Most indoor competitions are held between November and March. Indoor rankings lists include eligible performances from competitions held between April and March. The exception to this is when the WMA Indoor Championship is held after March 31. The season will be extended to the end of the WMA Championship. The season will be tagged the ending year’s Indoor Season for brevity on this site. For example, we are currently in the 2024 - 2025 Indoor Season shown as 2025 Indoor Season on this site.

This site is not yet setup for road races other than race walk. There is much to compiling accurate road race rankings plus is a significant order of magnitude difference to gather worldwide, road race performances – there can be hundreds of thousands in a weekend. MastersRankings hopes to provide meaningful road race rankings in the foreseeable future. Please share your thoughts.