From the Jump-Meeting to the Olympics: The Track and Field World Rankings

How do track and field athletes actually qualify for major championships? Since 2019, there has been an international ranking system in which results from meetings such as the one in Cottbus also play a role.

The ranking is based on a points system. It consists of:

• Performance achieved – the corresponding points are taken from a scoring table

• Importance of the competition – the more important the event (Olympic Games, World Championships), the more points

• Placement in the respective competition

• Average of the five best results from the past twelve months

• Comparison with all other athletes worldwide

All competitions are assigned to specific categories. The Cottbus Springer Meeting belongs to the Continental Tour Bronze. A victory here earns 60 points. By comparison, a win at the Olympic Games is worth 350.

This is why Christina Honsel received more points for finishing 7th with 1.93 m at the 2025 World Championships than for winning with 1.95 m in Cottbus – because the World Championships are rated as a higher-value competition than a high-jump meeting.

For the same reason, Sam Kendricks earned more points for his fourth-place finish at the Tokyo World Championships with a clearance of 5.95 m in the pole vault than Armand Duplantis did for his six-meter victory at the Diamond League meeting in Zurich. The Swede, however, jumps in such lofty realms that he doesn’t have to worry about his points. He not only leads the international pole vault ranking but also tops the overall points list across all track and field disciplines.