Qualification patterns of Olympic and IAAF World Championship middle distance runners

The 800 m and 1500 m are the two middle distance events contested at the Olympic Games and other major championships. On most occasions, athletes must negotiate two qualifying rounds to reach the final. The theoretically optimal method of competing in these rounds is to obtain an automatic qualifying position in the slowest possible finishing time; however, elite athletes are often ego oriented and this might have led them to try to win all races. The aim of this study was to identify whether elite athletes adopted these theoretically optimal tactics, or whether the will to win overrode them. Finishing positions and times of the eventual finalists in the men’s and women’s 800 m and 1500 m competitions at Olympic Games and IAAF World Championships between 1999 and 2017 were analysed. The performances of 606 athletes were analysed (800 m men: 122; 800 m women: 120; 1500 m men: 183; 1500 women: 181). The finalists’ finishing positions and times, as well as their overall ranking in the heats and semi-finals, were also obtained. Athletes were allocated to groups based on finishing position in the final: medallists (800 m and 1500 m), non-medallists finishing in the top eight (‘Top 8’: 800 m and 1500 m), and those athletes finishing outside the top eight (‘Top 12’: 1500 m only). One-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted on the heat, semi-final and final finishing times. In addition, one-way ANOVA were conducted with Tukey’s post-hoc tests to compare finishing times between groups. Statistical significance was accepted as P < .05. Kendall’s tau-b (τb) correlations determined the relationships between finishing position in the final with qualifying round positional, rank and finishing time data. Across the four events, 70% of the 57 gold medallists won both qualifying rounds, whereas 36% of the silver medallists and 19% of the bronze medallists achieved the same positions. Nineteen gold medallists set a season’s best or personal best time in the final. In each event, finishing position in the final was correlated with finishing position in the heats and semi-finals (P ≤ 0.002), but not with finishing time in those rounds. In the 800 m, medallists were faster than non-medallists in the final only (P < 0.001); in the 1500 m, medallists and Top 8 finishers were faster than Top 12 finishers in the final only (P < 0.001). Most World and Olympic champions won both their heat and semi-final, even though this was unnecessary, but managed to do so with slower times than in the final. These tactics showed a long-term pacing strategy that optimised overall competition success. In addition, the gold medallists did so in most cases in times slower than their best that year. Head-to-head elite championships, where winning is more important than time recorded, encourage a performance climate for both men and women athletes where ego orientation is more likely to occur