725 3. ANTONELLA CONFORTOLA (ITA) 223

Limone Vertical Extreme, the final of the Vertical World Series, Limone, Italy, 2013. © iancorless.com

After the Ultra and Sky rankings released recently, it is now the turn of the ISF Vertical discipline to announce the top ranked athletes.

Ten races in five continents were selected in the Vertical category and count 239 men from 20 nations and 115 women from15 nations.

Italy leads the men’s ranking followed by Spain and France and places second in the women’s ranking which is led by Spainand followed by France.

The Vertical discipline is clearly at home in the steep and technical terrain of the Alps where skyrunning was born. For added drama, many of the events take place at night. “One thousand metres skywards” however, can be found in many countries and new nations are adopting this fascinating discipline, introduced by the skyrunning inventors in 1994 who registered “Vertical Kilometer®” and it’s derivatives as a trademark. America will feature among the countries including the “VK” in their national calendar. Talking of new nations, it’s also interesting to note the very high performance level of new entries like Norway, ranking 10^th and 12^th

Urban Zemmer, 2012 & 2013 Vertical World Champion heads the Vertical ranking. © iancorless.com The overall ranking has been devised for the three skyrunning disciplines based on 55 races in 2013 (24 Ultra, 21 Sky and 10 Vertical). Among the principal aims was to take into account the quality of the field and the time relative to the winner, along with a proprietary ISF algorithm and other factors.

Here’s the general overview on the calculations previously published in the Ultra and Sky news:

“The ranking was elaborated on the basis of the participation and results obtained by the athletes in the international races selected by the ISF.

In calculating the points, the ranking is based on a proprietary ISF algorithm specifically studied for outdoor running, taking into account a consolidated algorithm used by the International Ski Federation.

Fifty-five races were selected for the 2013 season (24 Ultra, 20 Sky and 10 Vertical) – see ISF announcement in March. The selection was aimed at identifying the world’s most prestigious races with the greatest number of elite athletes participating, as indicated in the ISF news in January.

In each selected race, the first 30 men and first 15 women were counted. For each athlete, points were calculated on the basis of: the final position, the time relative to the winner and the number of elite athletes ahead or behind.

The final points were calculated on the average of the three best results of the season obtained by each athlete. For athletes who did not participate in at least three of the selected races throughout the season, a penalty of 11% was applied to those who participated in only two races, and 22% was applied to those who participated in just one.

The 2014 ranking will be based on 2013, but with a more precise indication of the elite athletes based on the previous year’s ranking.

The ISF ranking will be complete at the end of the 2015 season as the points will be calculated on the average of the previous three seasons with a weighted coefficient for each year.

The ISF assesses the yearly performances in their whole within the context of the results and performance in each race. As in other disciplines, it does not analyse the performance in absolute terms due to the many variables in outdoor running (vertical climb, type of terrain, climate, level of the competition… etc), the comparison between different races or different editions of the same race, would be too approximate.”

Erik Haugsnes, strong new Vertical contender from Norway. © iancorless.com