The purpose of this research was to analyse elite male 5000m runners by using a hand notation system, in order to identify the tactics the population employ whilst in a race situation. The notation was completed from video coverage of international races from 1997 to 2000. Each individual athletes position and time was recorded at each 200m interval on the recording sheets. However, in the analysis of the data, only the winning athletes were subsequently used. The results showed that even though the first and last kilometre split were the fastest of the race mean velocity 1st = 6.274 m/s and 5th = 6.575 m/s respectively, and most athletes ran these splits as their fastest; they were not significantly faster than the remaining three kilometre splits, p> 0.05. The results also showed that grand prix races were not significantly faster than championship races, and that championship finals were not significantly faster than championship heat races, p> 0.05. The positioning of the athletes at the 4400m point showed that (93%) of the winning athletes were in the top five positions, at 4600m (93%) of the winning athletes were in the top three positions and at 4800m (80%) of the winning athletes were in the top two positions. This highlights how vital being in contention with the leader or even leading the race is on the final outcome of the race.
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