Meseret Defar were the most successful male and female athletes: Defar won nine events and Powell won five in total. After Defar, Tatyana Lebedeva and Sanya Richards were the second and third highest earners of the competition. In terms of the 87 nations represented over the history of the World Athletics Final, the United States dominated the performance lists with 56 winners – over twice that of second placed Kenya. Russia, Jamaica, Germany and Ethiopia rounded out the top six nations by performance. This underlined these countries' strength in depth of athletes as—unlike the World Championships—there was no limit on the number of athletes representing a specific nation. Competition structure Qualification The results of the World Athletics Tour, an annual series of 25 athletics meetings, were used to form a points ranking system. Over the course of a year, athletes were awarded points for their performance in each specific event. The number of points earned depended upon both the athlete's finishing position in the race and the level of the competition. The IAAF Golden League and IAAF Super Grand Prix meetings formed the upper tier of competition, followed by the intermediate tier of IAAF Grand Prix meetings. Additionally, it was possible to earn a limited number of points at Area Permit Meetings, although an athlete had to compete in at least one of the higher level competitions to qualify for the World Athletics Final. Furthermore, athletes were awarded bonus points if they broke or equalled a world record at a World Athletics Tour meeting. The rankings were calculated by combining the points total of an athlete's five best performances on the World Athletics Tour (or four best performances in the throwing events). After the end of the final meeting of the season's World Athletics Tour, the top seven ranked athletes in each event received qualification into that event at the World Athletics Final. In the events of 1500 metres or longer, the top eleven athletes were allowed to compete at the final. In the event of a tie, the athlete with the superior season's best was entered into the Final. One additional athlete was allocated to each event as a wild card. In the event of absence or cancellation of a qualified athlete, the IAAF offered invitations to suitable athletes who did not originally qualify. However, any athletes who won a share of the IAAF Golden League US$1 million jackpot