I ran a micro-benchmark with Ruby 1.8.6, Ruby 1.9 and Python 2.5.1,
and was stunned by Ruby 1.9's improvements. Incidentally for my
particular test (which is a silly one...), Ruby was more than twice as
fast as Python!

http://antoniocangiano.com/2007/11/28/holy-shmoly-ruby-19-smokes-python-away/

We can't say for sure yet, but chances are that Ruby 1.9 is going to
be faster than CPython in most situations, which would be a great
accomplishment and step forward for the Ruby community. It's not a
competition, but a speed boost of this caliber is super welcomed. :-)

Cheers,
Antonio