Chinese athletes Liao Mengxue and Tong Zenghuan are not expelled by World Athletics, but still included in World Athletics rankings

 

Screenshots of the viral posts.

 

News Brief

A Facebook post published Aug. 12, 2023 claims that Chinese athletes Liao Mengxue and Tong Zenghuan had been expelled by the World Athletics. As of the issuance of this report, the post had been shared 17 times, and had received 88 comments and 527 likes or reactions. Similar claims have been widely circulated here and here. Some posts also claimed that the World Athletics revoked the world rankings of Liao and Tong.

Liao and Tong are track and field athletes from China, who have garnered attention on social media due to their appearances. Some netizens’ comments suggest that the two athletes were expelled by the World Athletics due to gender controversies.

Fact-checking

It has been found that as of Aug. 17, 2023, Liao and Tong’s profile pages on the official website of the World Athletics can still be accessed normally. Their highest world rankings, current world rankings, and this year’s competition results are visible. Therefore, the claim of them being “expelled by the World Athletics” is false.

After comparing Liao and Tong’s athlete profile pages on the World Athletics website and those archive by the Wayback machine, it has been found that  Liao’s current world ranking in the women’s 200m was missing on the Aug. 17, 2023 page. Tong’s highest world ranking was still visible, but the current world rankings for the women’s 200m and women’s 400m had not been displayed since at least November 2022 (as shown in the screenshots below).

 

Screenshots of the profile pages of Liao and Tong archived by the Wayback machine.

 

HKBU Fact Check sent an email inquiry to the World Athletics. The communications department of the World Athletics replied, “the World Rankings are updated and published on a weekly basis. Therefore, athletes can either be included in the rankings or removed from, from one week to the other.” They added, “According to the rules of the World Rankings, athletes need to have at least 5 performances in the past 12 months prior to the date of the Rankings, which requirement was not fulfilled by Mengxue LIAO. This is the reason why she is not listed in the weekly editions of the Rankings since then.” The world ranking rules are also clearly stated on the official website of the World Athletics. It states that the minimum number of performance scores in overall rankings is five, and only those performance scores are considered, which were obtained by the athlete in a 12 months’ period prior to the date of the rankings.

According to the profile pages of Liao and Tong, Liao had five valid performances in the women’s 100m within the 12 months prior to the publication date of this report (August 17, 2023). As a result, she was included in the current world ranking for the women’s 100m. However, she did not have sufficient valid performances (less than five) in the women’s 200m, leading to the absence of her current world ranking in that event.

 

Liao had fewer than five valid competition results in the women’s 200m within the preceding 12 months, therefore, her current world ranking in the event was absent on the Aug. 17, 2023 version of her profile page.

 

Tong did not have five valid performances in any event within the 12 months leading up to Aug. 17, 2023. As a result, there were no current world rankings listed for Tong in any event.

 

Tong had fewer than five valid competition results in all events within the preceding 12 months, therefore, her current world rankings for all events were not displayed on the Aug. 17, 2023 version of profile page.

 

The official website of the World Athletics allows users to access the weekly current world rankings for various athletic events. It has been discovered that Liao was still listed in the women’s 200m ranking on April 19, 2022. However, she did not appear in the following week’s ranking on April 26, 2022. This was because she did not have at least five valid competition results in the women’s 200m between April 26, 2021 and April 26, 2022, which is the one-year period considered for the ranking. Her latest performance in the women’s 200m was recorded April 25, 2021, and since it was over one year away from the date of the ranking, it couldn’t be counted as the valid competition result for the ranking.

 

Since Liao’s latest performance in the women’s 200m was recorded April 25, 2021, which had exceeded one year (as shown in the upper screenshot), she was removed from the event’s world rankings published April 26, 2022 (as shown in the lower screenshot).

 

It has been observed that athletes’ rankings could be changed, or their names could be removed or added in the weekly world rankings on the official website of the World Athletics. If an athlete is removed from the rankings and subsequently achieves new competition results that meet the abovementioned criteria, they can be reinstated in the current world rankings.

Based on the fact that Liao and Tong’s profile pages are still accessible in the athlete database of the World Athletics, it can be concluded that they are not expelled by the World Athletics. As of the publication of this report, no official announcement on their “expulsion” was found on the official website of the World Athletics.