Track Meet Abbreviations: NM, SB, PR, DQ, NT

NM is no mark (no legal attempt recorded), SB is season best, PR and PB are the same lifetime best, DQ is disqualified and NT is no time on an entry list. Every other code is in the table below, then explained one by one.

Results line decoder. Paste a line from a results sheet into the box on this page and every code on it is explained. If the box is not showing, the table above covers every code.

Quick answers

What does NM mean in athletics and track and field?

NM means no mark: the athlete took their attempts but recorded no legal one: every jump a foul, every throw out of sector. It is not a did-not-compete; they competed and nothing counted.

What does SB mean in running and athletics?

SB is season best: your best mark this season, which can be slower than your PR, and the number coaches weight because it says what you are running now. Where a sprint SB sits by level is in good 100m time by age; which marks count is in PR vs PB vs SB: which marks count.

PR vs PB: what is the difference?

Nothing: PR (personal record) is the American label, PB (personal best) the international one, for the same lifetime best. See PR vs PB vs SB: which marks count.

What does DQ mean in track?

Disqualified: the performance is struck. Common causes are a lane violation, a false start, or an exchange outside the zone in a relay. The time may still be announced, but it does not count for places, records or rankings.

What does SCR mean in track?

Scratched: the athlete was entered and withdrew before the event ran. Unlike a DNS, a scratch is usually declared in advance, and at some meets a late scratch carries an entry penalty.

What does NT mean on a heat sheet?

NT is no time: the athlete entered without a seed time. Meets seed NT entries into the slowest heat and the outside lanes, which is why your seed time matters.

What does DNS mean in track?

DNS is did not start: entered, never ran. No penalty, no mark; usually a scratch after the heat sheets were printed.

What does FR mean in track?

Two things, and the column tells you which. In the year or grade column of a high school or college results sheet, FR is freshman, next to SO for sophomore, JR for junior and SR for senior. Beside a mark in a record legend, FR is a facility record: the best mark ever set at that track or field house.

Now the whole set in detail, in the order you are likely to meet them.

Marks and records

PR, personal record. Your fastest time or best distance ever, in that event. The standard term in American high school and college track.

PB, personal best. The same thing. PB is the international convention, PR is the American one. Anyone who tells you they are different is overthinking it. There is more on the edge cases in what counts as a PR.

SB, season best. Your best mark this season, which may be slower than your PR. Coaches often care more about SB than PR, because it tells them what you are running now.

MR, meet record. The best mark ever recorded at that particular meet.

CR, championship record. The best mark ever set at that championship. This is the most overloaded abbreviation in the sport and it is worth slowing down for. At an NCAA meet CR often means collegiate record. In cross country it usually means course record. At a conference championship it can mean conference record. Read the meet's own legend before you assume, and if there is no legend, MR is the safer read for "best ever at this meet".

NR, national record. The best mark ever set by an athlete representing that country.

AR. Two different things depending on whose results you are reading. On an American results sheet it is the American record, the USATF national record. In World Athletics results it means area record, which is a continental record such as the European or African record. Same two letters, completely different bar, so check the source before you quote it.

WR, world record. The best legal mark in the world. Records are ratified after the fact, which is why a performance can be run one week and only officially become a WR some weeks later.

Those five are easiest to keep straight by scope rather than by rank. MR and CR are about a place or a particular championship, NR and AR are about a population of athletes, WR is everybody. And none of them can be set on a wind-aided or NWI mark, for the reasons in the wind section below.

One thing that surprises people: the big results databases do not define these codes in their own legends, because the codes come from the meet management software and from the meet's record listings rather than from the database. That is why the same three letters can mean different things at two meets in the same season.

When something goes wrong in a running event

DNF, did not finish. You started and did not complete the race.

DNS, did not start. You were entered and seeded but did not run. No judgment attached: it covers injury, a scratch late in the day, or being held out for a later event.

DQ, disqualified. The mark does not count. In running events the usual causes are a lane violation, an illegal exchange in a relay, obstruction, or a false start.

FS, false start. Leaving before the gun. Under most current rules a single false start disqualifies the athlete who commits it, which is why you will often see FS and DQ together on the same line.

SCR, scratch. Withdrawn from the event before it ran, usually by the athlete or coach.

NT, no time. No time was recorded, or none was submitted at entry. NT in an entry list means unseeded rather than slow.

When something goes wrong in a field event

NM, no mark. Every attempt was a foul or a miss, so no legal mark was recorded. It is the field event equivalent of DNF, and it happens to everyone eventually.

NH, no height. The same thing in the high jump and pole vault, where the athlete failed at their opening height.

PASS. The athlete chose not to attempt at that height. Normal tactics in the vertical jumps, not a failure.

F or X. A foul on that particular attempt. O marks a clearance in the vertical jumps, X a miss.

Wind and timing

NWI, no wind information. No wind reading was taken. It does not mean the wind was zero, it means nobody measured. An NWI mark cannot be a record, and coaches read it with caution.

w. The mark was wind-aided, meaning the tailwind exceeded the legal limit of 2.0 meters per second. You will see it written as 11.32w. The race result stands, the mark is not record-legal. Full detail in wind-legal marks explained, and the track wind calculator shows what a specific wind did to a specific mark.

FAT. Fully automatic timing, started by the gun and read from a photo finish camera.

h or HT. Hand timed, with a stopwatch. Reported to the tenth rather than the hundredth, and roughly a quarter of a second faster than the same race would read on FAT. That gap is the single most misunderstood thing in track results. The hand time to FAT converter applies the official corrections.

A. Mark set at altitude, which helps sprinters and hurts distance runners.

Rounds and qualifying

Q, capital. Qualified automatically, by finishing high enough in your heat.

q, lowercase. Qualified on time, as one of the next fastest across all heats. Same next round, different route, and the distinction matters enormously to the athletes on the bubble.

Prelims, semis, finals. The rounds. In a big meet you may need to run your event three times in two days.

Heat and section. The individual race within a round. Heats are usually seeded so the fastest athletes run together, generally in the last heat.

Seed time. The mark you entered with, which determines your heat and lane. See what a seed time is and why faking one backfires.

Grade, team and facility codes

FR, SO, JR, SR. Freshman, sophomore, junior and senior: the athlete's year in school, printed in the Year or Gr column of a high school or college results sheet. Some high school sheets print 9, 10, 11 and 12 instead. A coach reads the year with the mark, because the same 49.8 means one thing from a sophomore and another from a senior.

JV and V. Junior varsity and varsity, the two levels a high school meet can run in the same event. A JV race is scored separately from the varsity race, and a JV mark is still a legal mark for a personal record.

UNA or UNAT, unattached. The athlete competed without representing a school or club, which is common at summer meets and for college athletes racing out of season. The mark counts; the team score does not. There is more in getting recruited as an unattached athlete.

FR as a record flag. Facility record, the best mark ever recorded at that venue, listed alongside MR and CR in a meet's record legend. Read the legend before you assume: the same two letters in the year column mean freshman.

Splits

Split. Your time at a checkpoint inside the race rather than at the finish. A 400m split in an 800m, or each leg of a relay.

Negative split. Running the second half faster than the first. Generally the marker of a well-judged distance race.

The cross-code rules comparison prints the standard sheet markings for NFHS, NCAA, USATF and World Athletics: DNS, DNF, DQ, NM, Q and q (2025-2026 Track and Field Rule Codes Comparison).

Why any of this matters for recruiting

Because a college coach reads results sheets fluently and you are being read alongside everyone else.

A line that says 11.54 FAT with a wind of +1.2 tells a coach exactly what it is. A line that says 11.2 with no timing method and no wind tells them to assume the least flattering interpretation, because that is the safe assumption and they have a hundred more to get through.

That is why on TrackReels the event, mark, date, wind reading and timing method are required fields on every reel rather than optional notes, and why wind-illegal marks are labeled instead of quietly ranked. The abbreviations above are the language coaches think in, so the data is stored in that language too. You can see how it reads on any event leaderboard.