Closing speed

• Shows: published split times for Olympic and World Championship 5000m and 10,000m finals, reduced to how fast each athlete covered the closing metres.
• Does not show: a target to train towards or a selection standard. Closing speed in a championship final depends on how the race was run.
• Coverage: split timing differs by championship, so a closing distance is only offered for the finals that were actually timed at that point.

Splits come from the World Athletics results pages for each final, alongside the official finish times. A closing split is the finish time minus the recorded time at the checkpoint that distance from home; where a championship has no checkpoint there, the athlete is left out of that figure rather than estimated. Races timed every 1000m support the last kilometre only; races timed every 400m support the last lap and multiples of it; races timed every 100m support every distance shown.

Medians are used rather than averages, because a single athlete dropping out of contention distorts a mean. Bands count finishers only: athletes who did not finish are excluded, as are any whose checkpoint was not recorded. Position bands describe the final result, not the position at the checkpoint.

A tactical final rewards a fast finish; an honest, fast race can be won with a slower last lap. Comparing the closing splits of the same athlete across races is more informative than comparing a personal time trial with a championship final. The athlete comparison counts past finals, and is not a prediction.