Maui, HI – As the year comes to a close, it’s always interesting to take note of the top performances over the last 12 months. I did that recently with the men’s and women’s marathons. But today, I thought I’d go back and take a look at the best performances in history, and make some assessments based on those numbers. 

The way I’ve chosen to determine what’s best is by relying on the World Athletics scoring tables and looking at the gap between the number one and number two performers of all time to see, once again, what the numbers have to tell us. 

For instance, in the women’s 100 meters, the top performance of all time remains 10.49 seconds by Florence Griffith-Joyner from 16 July 1988. That performance is valued at 1314 points on the World Athletics scoring table. The second best performance of all time is 10.54 seconds by Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah run on August 21, 2021, valued 1302 points, a difference of 12 scoring points between the top and second best performance in history. 

With that in mind, let’s take a look at who has been the most dominant athlete in their event (in modern times); what’s the highest scoring performance of all time; what’s the greatest gap between first and second best performers all time; what’s the lowest scoring world record performance, and what is the most skewed event?

Here we go:

The most dominant athlete? I think it’s Jackie Joyner-Kersee in the heptathlon. She owns the top six scoring performances of all time (7291 WR valued at 1331 WA points), and has a 52-point advantage over the second best performer, Carolina Kluft of Sweden (7032 hep points valued at 1279 WA scoring points). 

The second most dominant athlete would have to be Anita Wlodarczyk of Poland in the hammer throw. She has a 43-point spread between her best performance (82.98m, 1303 WA points) and the second best performer, Deana Price, of the United States (80.31m, 1260 points). Anita also holds the six best throws in history to match Jackie’s dominance.

Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva has the top five women pole vaults of all time. Sweden’s Mondo Duplantis and American Ryan Crouser have the top four pole vaults and men shot puts of all time to round out the dominance category. 

The highest scoring performance itself goes to Gabriella Reinsch of the former East Germany. Her 76.80m discus throw on 9 July 1988 is accorded value of 1382 scoring points.  She holds a 41-point advantage over the second best discus performer, Zdenka Silhava (TCH) who produced a 74.56 throw 26 August 1984 (1341 points). 

Russia’s Natalya Lisovskaya has the second best performance of all-time based on the WA tables. Her 22.63m shot put on 7 June 1987 is valued at 1372 points.

 The lowest scoring top performance in any event is Nigerian Tobi Amusan’s 12.12 100m hurdles world record. According to WA scoring, that sprint scores just 1272 points. The second lowest scoring world record performance belongs to Gudaf Tsegay of Ethiopia whose 14:00.21 5000m scored 1282 points this September 17th.

The most skewed event has to be the women’s shotput with 97 performances scoring 1300+ points. 97 1300s-plus! Second most is the women’s discus with 32 1300+ performances. 

Yet there are five women’s events that score below 1300 points for their world records: 

100h – 12.12 Tobi Amusan (1272)

5000m – 14:00.21 Gudaf Tsegay (1282)

Steeplechase – 8:44.32 Beatrice Chepkoech (1285)

800m – 1:53.28 Jarmila Kratochvilova (1286 – despite being the oldest WR on the women’s side, cemented in place since 26 July 1983!)

1500m – 3:49.11 Faith Kipyegon (1295)

Only two men’s world records score lower than 1300 points:

Aries Merritt’s 12.80 110m hurdles (1294 points; and Lamecha Girma’s 7:52.16 steeplechase (1295 points).

Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic holds the highest scoring men’s performance of all-time off his 98.48 javelin throw on 25 May 1986, valued at 1365 points. Jamaica’s Usain Bolt holds the second highest ranking male performance with his 9.58 100m world record, representing 1356 points. He also has a 40 point chasm between himself and Tyson Gay and Yohan Blake who share the second best performers position at 100m at 9.69 seconds.

I think these WA scoring tables are important tools as we try to compare apples to oranges to papayas in the different track and field events. But based on the above numbers, it still seems the tables have yet to be adjusted evenly across the different distances and disciplines. 

Still, it’s an interesting study to undertake.

TOP 10 WA SCORES – MEN

1. Jan Zelezny (CZE) – Javelin – 98.48m – 5/25/96 – 1365 pts
2. Usain Bolt (JAM) – 100 m – 9.58 – 8/16/09 – 1356 pts
3. Johannes Vetter (GER) – Javelin – 97.76m – 9/06/20 – 1355 pts
4. Usain Bolt (JAM) – 200m – 19:19 – 8/20/08 – 1352 pts
5. Mike Powell (USA) – LJ – 8.95m – 9/30/91 – 1346 pts
6. Karsten Warholm (NOR) – 400H – 45.94 – 8/03/21 – 1341 pts
7. Yohan Blake (JAM) – 200m – 19.26 – 9/16/11 – 1339 pts
8. Usain Bolt ( JAM) – 100m – 9.63 – 8/05/12 – 1337 pts
9. Johannes Vetter (GER) – Javelin – 96.29 – 5/29/21 – 1334 pts
10. Ryan Crouser (USA) – SP – 23.56m – 5/27/23 – 1334 pts

TOP 10 WA SCORES –WOMEN

1. Gabriele Reinsch (GDR) – Discus – 75.89m – 7/08/88 – 1382 pts
2. Natalya Lisovskaya (RUS) – SP – 22.63m – 6/06/87 – 1372 pts
3. Natalya Lisovskaya (RUS) – SP – 22.60m – 6/07/87 – 1371 pts
4. Natalya Lisovskaya (RUS) – SP – 22.55m – 7/05/88 – 1367 pts
5. Natalya Lisovskaya (RUS) – SP – 22.53m – 5/27/84 – 1366 pts
6. Natalya Lisovskaya (RUS) – SP – 22.53m – 8/14/88 – 1366 pts
7. Ilona Slupianek (GDR) – SP – 22.45m – 5/11/80 – 1361 pts
8. Ilona Slupianek (GDR) – SP – 22.41m – 7/24/80 – 1359 pts
9. Ilona Slupianek (GDR) – SP – 22:40m – 6/03:83 – 1358 pts
10. Ilona Slupianek (GDR) – SP – 22.36m – 5/25/80 – 1357 pts

END