What the numbers mean
At a championship, the model gives every athlete entered in an event a chance of finishing in the top three. It also gives a chance of winning, which shows whether a favourite is clear of the rest or one of several close names.
Podium chances are only given for a real competition, where the athletes are actually entered. On Track, Field, each event page, the dashboard and athlete pages, the number is the model rating instead. The same model reads the world's top 20 in each event as if they met in one final and rates how likely each is to finish in the top three. The 20 ratings add up to 300, so 60% in the 100m means the same as 60% in the shot put.
The top three comes first on purpose. On the day, the fastest athlete can false-start, get blocked in, or be caught on the line, so the exact winner is often close between three or four names. Who makes the podium is a fairer question, and one you can check against the result afterwards. The win chance says how open that race is, not who will win.
What the model looks at
One model makes every call on the site. It compares each athlete only with the others in the same final. It learned how much each thing matters from real finals since 2009: the Olympics, World Championships, continental championships, Asian Games and Diamond League Finals.
This season counts most, and in full: the average of an athlete's five best marks, their form over the last six weeks, their podiums at major meetings, and their record against the strongest entrants in finals they have shared. An older mark counts only where it still beats this season. It counts for less the older it is, and never for enough to put an athlete ahead of someone faster this season, so a record-breaking season is never outweighed by a big mark from two years ago.
How well it works
Neither figure knows who will turn up. Every final in both tests is scored only on athletes who reached the start line, so they measure how well the model ranks a field, not who ends up in it. Injuries and late withdrawals are a separate question, and the watch flags on the call answer it.
What it can't do
- It reads form, not the future. A last-minute injury, a withdrawal announced on the morning, or a slow tactical race decided by a final sprint can all beat the numbers on the day.
- It gives chances, not certainties: a favourite with a 60% chance of winning still loses four times in ten, and it never claims to know the exact 1-2-3.
- It's not affiliated with World Athletics or the Wanda Diamond League. It just reads their public data.
Where the data comes from
Every mark, ranking and result comes straight from World Athletics's own public API, the same data behind their broadcasts and athlete profiles. The scraping runs on a separate machine, and no mark is ever typed in or edited by hand, so what you read here is exactly what they published.
Searching by country
The search box finds countries as well as athletes. Type a nation — “Jamaica”, “KEN”, “Norway” — and it appears in the results alongside any athletes whose name matches, with how many ranked athletes and how many events that nation has this season.
Opening one gives that nation its own page: every ranked athlete it has, their marks and scores, its three best performances of the season, and its athletes at the current championship. The page wears the country's own colours, taken from its flag.
