MileSplit HQ - The Battle of the Years squads had their Top 15 showdown a few weeks ago, and now the Leaders are set to take the stage to decide who was the best of the best indoors during the last 8 years. The recent-times legends are stepping to the fore, including Alex Hatz and Mary Cain and Richard Rose and Melissa Kurzdorfer and Zavon Watkins and Emily Lipari and AJ Johnson and Lateisha Philson and Winslow Dorsainvill and Aisling Cuffe and Jordan Yamoah and Shayla Broughton and Jay Hebert and Whitney Fountain and Luke Gavigan and Kadeca Baird and Strymar Livingston and Brenessa Thompson and Jermaine Brown and Claudia Francis, and we could keep this roll call rolling for a long time, but we're going to let the athletes speak for themselves.
The action for the BotY Top 15 resulted in both the guys and girls of 2015 winning their titles, but the Leaders contest can be quite a different animal, especially when you have a runner one season leading the nation in just about every distance except maybe the 1000 yard event, and that's just because she decided not to run at the Pearl River Holiday Classic. The Leaders contest brings out the best of the best, and every one of these virtual athletes will tell you this is what they train all season for and that it's probably their main highlight of virtually every year.
In addition to the 15 events featured in the Top 15 BotY, the Leaders contest gets two bonus events, though the sprinters and field event athletes especially may not quite see the two additions as a big plus. But the fact is, looking at the long distance events, one can't help noticing that by far the best times for the guys and girls came at two distances called the Mile and 2 Mile, because a lot of high profile invitationals like the Millrose Games and the end-of-season Nationals use these distances instead of the NY standard 1500-1600-3000-3200. Now the runners doing the 200-400-800 distances could also argue that they deserve the same love, but the situation there isn't anywhere near as extreme as it is for the long distance events. And anybody who goes out and runs 16 times around the track deserves some reward.
Finally, in addition to the the extra competition of the breakdown of the Leaders spots by athlete, team, and section as was done for the Outdoor and XC BotY's, we have tacked on some comparisons for the Indoor versus Outdoors and Boys versus Girls action to see which events feature a special advantage for a season or gender. There are many other comparisons that could be done, including which athlete had the biggest advantage over the #2 athlete in his or her season (Jordan Yamoah's 12% advantage in the 2011 pole vault might be a good place to start), but we don't want this to become a total stat-obsessed geekfest, so let the Leaders meet begin with the sprinters burning some rubber.
Battle Formation
For the Leaders indoors Battle of the Years meet, we've tallied up the averages of top 17 performers in each of 17 events (Mile and 2 Mile added to standard indoor 15) on both the guys and girls side for the years 2008 to 2015. We have then pitted those averages against each other at a States type meet with each representative vying for the points for eight places based on a 10-8-6-5-4-3-2-1 scoring system. From these 17 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.
To pump up the drama but still keep the amount of pages relatively concise, we've split the 15 events into seven groups to review: Sprints (55 and 300), Mid Distance (600 and 1000), Long Distance (1500-1600+Mile and 3000-3200+2 Mile), Hurdles, Horizontal Jumps (long jump and triple jump), Vertical Jumps and Vaults (high jump and pole vault), Throws (shot put only, as weight throw has a very limited history), and Relays (4x200, 4x400, 4x800).
As always, any athlete who appears in these charts had a super season, even if they finished 8th here against the stiffest of competition, including their former and later selves. A number of names listed here such as Broughton and Tooker and Lundy and Watson and McIntosh may very likely be popping up on this year's Leaders squads. Let the good times roll and let the battle begin.
Battle of the Years Events
Click to Snap to
Group 1: Sprints - Group 2: Mid Distance
Group 3: Long Distance - Group 4: Hurdles
Group 5: Horizontal Jumps - Group 6: Vertical Jumps and Vaults
Group 7: Throws - Group 8: Relays - Meet Wrap-up
Summary by Athlete - Summary by Team - Summary by Section
Indoor Versus Outdoor Comparison - Boys Versus Girls Comparison