DyeStat Elite

national rankings since 1997

about the DyeStat Elite Rankings
of US high school track & field

DyeStat rankings are the elite of high school track and field in the United States. A database is built each season -- indoor and outdoor -- for performances that exceed minimum standards (cutoffs) established by DyeStat. All meet results received by DyeStat are screened for qualifying performances. Other individual performances can be submitted for consideration by email to [email protected] according to the instructions How to Get Ranked.

Cutoffs are intended to produce the top 100 performers in each event each season. They are adjusted each year based on experience. In the 2000 Outdoor season, the DyeStat Elite ranked more than 6,000 performances drawn from 10,000 performances in that season's database (only an athlete's best performance in an event is ranked).  

Which events are ranked?

The primary events ranked by DyeStat are those established for US high school competition by the National Federation of State High School Associations. Although some states deviate, these are the standard events for high school meets in the US. Closely related events like the 1500 meters, 1- mile, 3000 meters, and 2-mile are also included. This leaves out such events as javelin, weight throw, shuttle relays, medley relays, and race walk, which are not widely contested throughout the US. Rankings for the hammer and weight throw are maintained by Bob Gourley, and his rankings are reported on DyeStat even though they are not in the database.  The same is done for race walk with the rankings of Michael Roth.

The "season" for DyeStat Elite rankings runs from the first day of organized high school meets through the post-season regional and national invitationals, such as the Nike Indoor Classic, the National Scholastic Indoor, the Foot Locker Outdoor, the Golden West, the Golden South, and the Great Southwest. Age group and Junior Olympics competition is also included through the national championships conducted by the AAU and USATF.

Policies about FAT, wind, and such

DyeStat's policy is to report all published performances at recognized meets, with disclosure of known conditions. Performances are not excluded because they are windy or because we don't know the conditions. Handheld times for distances up to 400 meters are flagged with an "h" and a time penalty is added. Wind readings are shown after the mark for events where wind is relevant (sprints and hurdles up to 300 meters and horizontal jumps). If no wind is shown for these events, it was not recorded or was not reported to DyeStat.

If an athlete's best number is hand held or wind-assisted, the lists will also show that athlete's best legal performance, if available to DyeStat.

Hand held penalty. A fixed amount is added to hand held times in races of 400 meters or less. A hand held time is adjusted upward as follows: 0.24 seconds up to 200 meters and 0.14 seconds for 300 and 400 meters. A handheld time is shown in the rankings with the adjustment penalty added and the letter "h" next to it.

Conversion -- Until 3/24/00, DyeStat normally did not convert non-standard distances to National Federation standard distances. If conversions were used (such as for the San Diego Games and Los Angeles Invitational, which are the only opportunity for many California athletes to compete indoors), the letter "c" appeared next to the time. Differentials in the National Federation case book were used for the conversions.

Effective 3/24/00, DyeStat merged the 1600 with the Mile and the 3200 with the 2-Mile to eliminate duplication and overlap between these close distances. (The Mile is only 9 meters longer than 1600 meters). Standard National Federation adjustments of +1.6 seconds for 1600 meters and +3.4 seconds for 3200 meters were used to display all performances as Mile and 2-Mile.

New conversion policy starting with 2002 indoor season: After review of the tables in the Big Green Book (by Track and Field News, TAFnews Press, 2000), we have changed the time differentials for converting from 1600 meters to 1 Mile and 3200 meters to 2 Miles. Instead of a single differential, we are using different conversion factors for boys and girls, which reflects the slower speeds of girls. We are still using a single conversion factor for each gender, regardless of the speed actually run.

Differentials for 2002 indoor season (seconds that will be added to 1600 and 3200 meter times):

Nike

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