The Data
We took a snapshot of the two State Leaderboards (one for banked tracks, and one for flat tracks), and compared the two. The rankings were done purely on marks set on specific tracks, so an athlete can be on both listings. We looked at three data points. The overall State Leader (which could in itself be an outlier performance), the 5th fastest athlete to see the top end talent of the event, and the 10th best athlete to judge the depth of the event. We then looked to see if there was any uniformity amongst the set as a whole.
Key Takeaways
- In almost every case, the flat track mark was slower than the banked track mark. The only exception was Saratoga Boy's 4x800m performance on the OCC Flat Track.
- As expected, we found uniformity in the time difference between the 5th and 10th place athletes, in net gain over flat track athletes. The exceptions were the Boys 1600m and the Girls 3000m. The Boys 1600m can be attributed to the big invitationals at the Armory searching for the Millrose Mile creating more competitive fields, while the 3000m means that that event will be the most competitive at the State Meet, a trend we've seen for the last 10 years in the event.
- There were several events where we did not find uniformity in comparing the 1st place leader, vs the depth of the fields, in the comparison of banked to flat. This typically means there is a singular data outlier leading the state, IE an exceptional athlete. The most consistent outlier was Saratoga, whereas Emily Bush's 3000m time is so far ahead of the State due to the strength of the performance. On the flip side, when she was in the 4x800m, her relays flat track mark was almost dead even with the superior banked mark.