NSW Lane draws at Juniors

[Simon Hampel]

There was quite a bit of discussion over the weekend at the Athletics NSW Junior Championships about how lane draws work.

This is what the official rules of competition stated:

2.11.2 For events between 100m to 800m inclusive, using 9 lanes, lanes will be drawn as follows:​

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1. In the first round, athletes will be allocated to heats based on advice of best times this season. A draw by lot will be made for the order of heats and the lane of each athlete.
2. For the final, athletes will be ranked according to their positions and times in the previous round.

Then three draws will be made:​

1. One for the four highest ranked athletes or teams to determine placings in lanes 4, 5, 6 and 7
2. Another for the fifth & sixth ranked athletes or teams to determine placings in lane 8 and 9
3. Another for the three lowest ranked athletes or teams to determine placings in lanes 1, 2 and 3

Now the key phrase for working out finals lane draw is "For the final, athletes will be ranked according to their positions and times in the previous round."

So it's not just times that determine the lane draw - it's positions in the heats as well. So winning your heat is more important than running a fast time.

This is also why they don't list the results from the prelims purely in time order - it is in position order too.

So from the prelims we had:

  1 Perry, Xavier             14 Nepean Distr             23.55Q -0.1  2 #1
  2 Marshall, Max             14 Nowra Athlet             23.59Q -1.4  1 #1
  3 Hampel, Andres            14 U.T.S. North             24.50Q -0.6  3 #1
  4 Albino, Wol               14 Hornsby Dist             23.86Q -0.1  2 #2
  5 Hayes, Liam               14 Hills Distri             24.31Q -1.4  1 #2
  6 Hamilton, Tahj            14 Mingara Athl             24.72Q -0.6  3 #2
  7 Ali, Yahya                14 Ryde Athleti             24.56q -1.4  1 #3
  8 Wright, Aiden             14 Ryde Athleti             24.78q -0.6  3 #3
  9 Elliott, Hamish           14 St Ignatius              24.96q -0.1  2 #3

I've added the position number (#) after the heat number in the list above.

So Xavier, Max and Andres won their heats and Wol was the fastest 2nd place getter, so those are the four highest ranked athletes and so went in the draw for lanes 4, 5, 6 & 7

Then Liam and Tahj were the 5th & 6th ranked athletes (both coming 2nd in their heats) and so went in the draw for lanes 8 & 9

Finally, Yahya, Aiden and Hamish were the 7th, 8th & 9th ranked athletes (all coming 3rd in their heats) and so went in the draw for lanes 1, 2 & 3

I should note that these are the rules set out by Athletics NSW for Juniors - and I'm not sure if other events run by ANSW, or events run by different organisations (eg Little Athletics NSW, other states, AA, etc) would use the same methodology.