We are proud to introduce: OCR World Championships Top 10 OCR Athlete Rankings.
Here at the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships we are always looking to push boundaries, develop the sport, and improve for the athletes, as well as our fans.
Whilst we work hard on innovation for our races, designing the most exciting courses and delivering concepts such as the 100m sprint debuting at OCRWC ’19, we’re aware that a whole year passes in between the World Championship races, and we wanted to try and bridge that gap.
Whilst the theory may sound complex, the concept is beautifully simple. We have invited some of the best known, impartial, and well-informed OCR media members to contribute to a once monthly ranking system.
International OCR Voting Committee
Our International OCR Voting Committee is a collective of prominent and well-informed OCR media figures, who were chosen specifically for their knowledge, their impartiality, and their passion for OCR. In addition to consistently reviewing results, our members have regular conversations together, sharing pertinent performances from their region, discussing these and anything else that might affect their decisions. With votes being cast monthly by the committee, this system aims to rank athletes worldwide who are unable to compete against each other, before they compete head-to-head at the World Championships taking place in October 2019. This initiative marks the first time athletes are ranked across multiple brands worldwide.
As a starting point, each voter was supplied with an initial list of athletes who performed to an exceptional standard at the 2018 OCRWC. But, we didn’t want to limit them with only this list. After all, there are incredible athletes who race age group, racers who have taken time off, or even up and coming runners we haven’t heard of; people who didn’t get the opportunity to place in the Pro wave at OCRWC ’18. It’s important to us that these athletes do not get overlooked, and as we know there are often newcomers to the sport, our aim is that by encouraging our committee members to talk amongst themselves we can highlight up and coming athletes early, or give credit to a particularly strong performance.
So we provided an extra option–each month voters can nominate up to five wild card entries.
These are athletes who they feel have performed to a world standard, whatever their circumstance. The end result of this process is a complete list of their top ten male & female athletes.
This system is unique because it is not purely a points based system married with subjective input from prominent members of the OCR community, but because it also relies on the feedback of different individuals with different viewpoints to interpret each performance, and measure them against their peers. And with each voting cycle the list will grow, bringing to the fore a new selection of athletes.
We hope with the introduction of this system we can keep the spirit and competition of the Obstacle Course Racing World Championships alive all year long, create friendly debate, and give credit to the incredible athletes who work hard throughout the season.
And with that, here are March’s (and our first) Top 10 OCR Athlete Rankings. In the months to follow, these will be accompanied with insights and newsworthy results from our committee.
March Top 10 OCR Athlete Rankings
| Rank | Trend | Athlete | Country | Points |
| 1 | – | Jon Albon | UK | 87 |
| 2 | – | Ryan Atkins | CAN | 81 |
| 3 | – | Thibault Debusschere | BEL | 76 |
| 4 | – | Thomas van Tonder | SA | 67 |
| 5 | – | Sergei Perelygin | RUS | 52 |
| 6 | – | Nikolaj Dam | DEN | 49 |
| 7 | – | Ryan Woods | USA | 40 |
| 8 | – | Sergei Silin | RUS | 31 |
| 9 | – | Piotr Lobodzinski | POL | 28 |
| 10 | – | Ludvig Werkmaster | SWE | 27 |
Other athletes receiving votes:
- Thomas Buyle (BEL)
- Anton Suzdalev (RUS)
- VeeJay Jones (USA)
- Mark Batres (USA)
- Pavel Hrdina (CZ)
- Richard Hynek (CZ)
- Kirk DeWindt (USA)
- Claude Eksteen (SA)
- Daniel Corner (UK),
- Albert Soley Castells (EST)
- Ryan Kent (USA)
- Ryan Kempson (USA)
- ,Leon Kofoed (DEN),
- Robert Killian (USA)
| Rank | Trend | Athlete | Country | Points |
| 1 | – | Lindsay Webster | CAN | 100 |
| 2 | – | Nicole Mericle | USA | 97 |
| 3 | – | Rebecca Hammond | USA | 83 |
| 4 | – | Karin Karlsson | SWE | 61 |
| 5 | – | Zuzana Kocumova | CZE | 60 |
| 6 | – | Ida Mathilde Steensgaard | DEN | 47 |
| 7 | – | Rose Wetzl | USA | 44 |
| 8 | – | Anna Svensson | SWE | 37 |
| 9 | – | Elin Johansson | SWE | 29 |
| 10 | – | Lisan De Vries | NL | 23 |
Other athletes receiving votes:
- Patricia Eksteen (SA)
- Nell Rojas (USA)
- Alyssa Hawley (USA)Faye Stenning (CA)
- Tereza Schejbalova (CZE)
- Linnea Ivarsson (SWE)
- Henriette Albon (NOR)
- Alisa Petrov (RUS)
- Annika H. Runegaard Thomsen (DEN)
- Rea Kolbl (SVN)
- Myriam Guillot-Boisset (FRA)
Make sure to check back in the months to follow as these will be accompanied with insights and newsworthy results from our International OCR Committee.
