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.