Which order would be suitable for ranking athletes by their best performance times?

Ranking athletes by their best performance times requires organizing the data to clearly show who performed the best. Using descending order arranges the performance times from the highest to lowest, meaning the athlete with the fastest time appears first, and the athlete with the slowest time appears last. This method effectively highlights the top performers, making it easy to identify the best athlete at a glance.

In contrast, ascending order would list the athletes from the slowest to the fastest, which is not suitable for ranking purposes when you want to showcase the best performance first. Alphabetical order does not take performance times into account, so it fails to provide a meaningful ranking based on results. Random order lacks any systematic approach to organizing the athletes, making it ineffective for comparison purposes. Therefore, descending order is the appropriate choice when ranking athletes by their best performance times.