To answer your questions on the Mercier-Rioux scoring system and Mercier-Rioux Scoring Awards
Who are Mercier and Rioux?
Daniel Mercier and Nelson Rioux are two longtime friends of a Quebec/Canada athletics club.
Daniel Mercier, now living in France, is a former 1500m (744 pts) runner who has coached some national and international athletes. Currently he is the CEO of Activity Lab a start-up based in France, which offers solutions in the field of sport-health. He is also the co-creator of the Leger-Navette VO2 Max test (Leger 20m shuttle run test)
Nelson Rioux is living in Montreal Canada. He is a former triple jumper (769 pts). He is an IT and data spcialist. He has confonded Activity Lab with Daniel Mercier.
Why scoring tables?
Athletics is not a sport, but a multitude of sports. How do you determine who is the best athlete in the world, a country, or how to determine the most deserving athletes at a particular meeting? It must be possible to determine, prioritize, put in order the “value” of the athletes concerned. First, it is determined by the value of its performance, such time over 100m, the height jumped to the pole, what is it worth on another test? secondly, by its ability to succeed at important events, National Championship, World Championship, Diamond League, etc. It is therefore important to determine the value of a performance of one event to compare it to another.
The principles of our scoring tables ?
Our tables take into account performances, up to the thousandth world performance, of the last 6 years for all the official events of the world championship (1/2 marathon included)
- take into account only the performances of the specialists of an event by excluding the performances of the non-specialists
- take into account the depth of each event, for example the 100m has more depth than the 50km walk.
Scoring tables base on world records?
To rely solely on world records for scoring or equivalence would imply that all world records would be equivalent, ie, they would detach themselves from the mass of performances of a discipline in an equivalent manner. This is not the case, and that is why world records do not necessarily get the same number of points on our tables
Mercier-Rioux vs IAAF scoring tables
It is difficult for us to constructively criticize the IAAF tables because we do not know how they were designed. The only thing we can do is to compare what gives one or performances with the 2 tables. Here are the top 15 world performances in 2019 according to the IAAF tables and the Mercier-Rioux tables.
|
Event |
Performance |
Name |
Pays |
Points M-R |
Pos M-R |
Points IAAF |
Pos IAAF |
|
400m W |
48,14 |
Salwa Eid Naser |
BRN |
1 031 |
1 |
1 282 |
20 |
|
Triple Jump W |
15,41 |
Yulimar Rojas |
VEN |
1 025 |
2 |
1 263 |
44 |
|
400m Hurdles M |
46,92 |
Karsten Warholm |
NOR |
1 024 |
3 |
1 289 |
13 |
|
400m W |
48,37 |
Shaunae Miller-Uibo |
BAH |
1 023 |
4 |
1 272 |
30 |
|
400m Hurdles W |
52,16 |
Dalilah Muhammad |
USA |
1 021 |
5 |
1 264 |
42 |
|
400m Hurdles M |
46,98 |
Rai Benjamin |
USA |
1 021 |
6 |
1 285 |
17 |
|
400m Hurdles W |
52,23 |
Sydney McLaughlin |
USA |
1 019 |
7 |
1 261 |
49 |
|
Half Marathon M |
0:58:01 |
Geoffrey Kamworor |
KEN |
1 019 |
8 |
1 277 |
27 |
|
Marathon W |
2:14:04 |
Brigid Kosgei |
KEN |
1 018 |
9 |
1 296 |
4 |
|
Triple Jump M |
18,14 |
Will Claye |
USA |
1 018 |
10 |
1 287 |
15 |
|
High Jump W |
2,06 |
Mariya Lasitskene |
ANA |
1 014 |
11 |
1 279 |
24 |
|
Marathon M |
2:01:41 |
Kenenisa Bekele |
ETH |
1 013 |
12 |
1 315 |
1 |
|
Shot Put M |
22,91 |
Joe Kovacs |
USA |
1 012 |
13 |
1 295 |
5 |
|
Long Jump W |
7,30 |
Malaika Mihambo |
GER |
1 011 |
14 |
1 284 |
18 |
|
Shot Put M |
22,90 |
Ryan Crouser |
USA |
1 011 |
15 |
1 295 |
6 |
|
Event |
Performance |
Name |
Pays |
Points M-R |
Pos M-R |
Points IAAF |
Pos IAAF |
|
Marathon M |
2:01:41 |
Kenenisa Bekele |
ETH |
1 013 |
12 |
1 315 |
1 |
|
200m M |
19,50 |
Noah Lyles |
USA |
1 004 |
26 |
1 300 |
2 |
|
Marathon M |
2:02:37 |
Eliud Kipchoge |
KEN |
998 |
35 |
1 298 |
3 |
|
Marathon W |
2:14:04 |
Brigid Kosgei |
KEN |
1 018 |
9 |
1 296 |
4 |
|
Shot Put M |
22,91 |
Joe Kovacs |
USA |
1 012 |
13 |
1 295 |
5 |
|
Shot Put M |
22,90 |
Ryan Crouser |
USA |
1 011 |
15 |
1 295 |
6 |
|
Shot Put M |
22,90 |
Tom Walsh |
NZL |
1 011 |
16 |
1 295 |
7 |
|
Marathon M |
2:02:48 |
Berhanu Legesse |
ETH |
995 |
45 |
1 294 |
8 |
|
Marathon M |
2:02:55 |
Mosinet Geremew |
ETH |
993 |
57 |
1 292 |
9 |
|
100m M |
9,76 |
Christian Coleman |
USA |
994 |
49 |
1 291 |
10 |
|
400m M |
43,45 |
Michael Norman |
USA |
1 005 |
21 |
1 290 |
11 |
|
Long Jump M |
8,69 |
Tajay Gayle |
JAM |
1 004 |
25 |
1 289 |
12 |
|
400m Hurdles M |
46,92 |
Karsten Warholm |
NOR |
1 024 |
3 |
1 289 |
13 |
|
400m M |
43,48 |
Steven Gardiner |
BAH |
1 004 |
27 |
1 288 |
14 |
|
Triple Jump M |
18,14 |
Will Claye |
USA |
1 018 |
10 |
1 287 |
15 |
What is the source of your statistics
We have used data available on the TILASTOPAJA web site. We particularly like the depth of the data offered by this site. For other usages we also rely on statistics from the World Athletics website (formely IAAF).
What are the Mercier-Rioux scoring awards
For several years, the IAAF has named athletes of the year. We appreciate that. However, our interest is to put the emphasis on the value of the performance. That’s why we decided to present our own nominations and rankings simultaneously to the IAAF Awards.
What are the categories of the Mercier-Rioux scoring awards
We have 7 categories no matter the gender with five nominations by category and 10 nominations for the overall category,:
- Overall (1 – 10) , no matter the event
- Sprint and Hurdles. From 100m to 400m
- Track: Midde and Long Distance. From 800m to 10000m on track including Steeplechase
- Road Running and Walk: 10 km, Half Marathon, Marathon and Race Walk
- Jumps and Combined Events
- Throws
- OverAll U20.
An athlete may appear more then once within a category if he has done good scoring on more the one event by category
Will the awards only based on the global ranking?
We have prepared the awards for the World Wide Ranking and also other awards based on Regions and Countries.