MileSplit HQ - The first Battle of the Years meet featuring the averages of the top 15 athletes in each event for each year from 2008 to 2015 proved that both 2010 and 2015 could be considered pretty special years overall in NY Track and Field. But of course that just stirred up all those questions that led to the second BotY meet, those queries being, "What would the results be if you pitted the best-of-the-best from each year against each other, and does a Rai Benjamin or Mary Cain or Zavon Watkins or Kadecia Baird get better with age, and does having one super awesome athlete in an event one year mean that it was overall a standout year for that event?"
Click Here To Access Part One of the "Battle of the Years"
Common sense would tell you that if a year like 2010 was the combined tops in the top-15-average BotY, it must have also had some pretty stellar athletes sprinkled in at the top of its performance lists. But of the four chart-topping athletes mentioned above, not one was the leader in an event in 2010, though three of them were in action, so who knows? But yes, 2010 and 2015 should by all rights be pretty prominent in the BotY Leaders meet.
So we come to the Leaders meet of the BotY series, which is really just a shameless excuse to bring back the most prominent faces of the the last 8 years of NYT&F action to once again perform their heroics. You will remember why the last name Francis seemed so omnipresent a few years back (four different event-toppers for three different teams -- Samantha, Phyllis, Chamique, Claudia). You will see how Terrance Livingston put Great Neck South on the map. You will understand why Melissa Kurzdorfer generated such awe when she stepped into the ring.
Late breaking stuff: Sammy Watson just ran a 2:04.27 for a huge win in the 800 at Junior Worlds, which kind of messes up the data in a bunch of the tables. Though I'm not going to recalculate everything and change all the scores for a race that happened in July, the main changes are that Sammy bumps her leader categories from 3 to 4, Rush-Henrietta's total jumps to 6 overall, and Section 5 takes over 5th place alone at 22. The main difference for the BotY team totals is that 2015 jumps up two places and 2 points in the 800m, moving the team in the end up 1 place for the Girls, 1 point ahead of 2011. Combined, 2015 goes to 203 points and does not change position.
Battle Formation
This is just a mano a mano and leader vs. leader dogfight in each of 18 events on both the guys and girls side for the years 2008 to 2015, and often it's an athlete's junior version against a senior one, or maybe for Mary Cain and Sammy Watson even a freshman vs. a sophomore. The athletes battle it out for points for eight places based on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system. From these 18 events on each side will emerge one year as king and queen of the track, plus a combined winner from when the boys and girls join forces.
This meet is held in a straightforward order of short to long running events, then hurdle type events, then field action, and then closing with the relays, thus: Sprints (100 and 200). Mid Distance (400 and 800), Long Distance (1500-1600 and 3000-3200), Hurdles and Steeplechase (100-110 H, 400 H, 2K-3K steeple), Horizontal Jumps (long jump and triple jump), Vertical Jumps and Vaults (high jump and pole vault), Throws (shot put and discus), and Relays (4x100, 4x400, 4x800). The Total Points column at the end of each event's table shows the cumulative point score for the year's team in the preceding events by gender, and the Boys and Girls Combined table at the end of each group sums up each year's score from both the boys and girls contingents. Ties in an event result in both athletes receiving the full point score for the place.
For those who can't get enough of mindless numbers and track trivia, the results also include a breakdown of some of the listings for leaders based on thrice successful chart-toppers by athletes and their teams, and the sections tallies. Cheers to all for the great performances to come -- or maybe the great ones of the past.