ranking list

[Adventure Racer]

On the other hand, if you know before you start that e.g. you’re injured or hungover and you intend to walk or jog round, then you have the option to declare yourself non-competitive before you start and your time won’t be included in the calculation of rankings points

Maybe we need to have two forms of non-comp, as I suspect those people would still like to be included in the normal results listing, rather than relegated to the bottom with those who've mapped the area etc.

[mharky]

I'm starting to regret running M21S non-comp at the 6-Days now, could have got some good points...

[mike g]

Or you could have got even better points by running orange ...

I wonder how many points the winner of this course would have got (if he'd been old enough to receive a score), given that the guy in 13th who took nearly twice as long got 1141.

[Spookster]

the guy in 13th who took nearly twice as long got 1141.

As the only ranked runner on the course, the only possible score Frank could be given was his existing average score (1141). But he clearly had a very bad run!

[EddieH]

Wow Mike I was under the impression that you couldn't score on TD 1, 2 or 3 courses (excepting urban?)

As it seems I am wrong, presumably someone (like Cat Taylor) who has somehow got very high ranking can ensure they keep their scre for ever simply by entering 6 yellow courses a year. Presuming that they are the only ranked competitor on the course they will get their existing score for the event. In theory they could still be doing this with a zimmer in their old age.

Or have I got the maths wrong?

[Scott]

Wow Mike I was under the impression that you couldn't score on TD 1, 2 or 3 courses (excepting urban?)

TD4 and 5 are not referenced within the results software that clubs use and therefore any colour code or authorised course will be included.

The user interface both as a member and as an event official has been designed to be easy to use. At times decisions have been taken to prioritise this ease of use above functionality. An example of this is the wish to include only TD4/5 courses; technically this was feasible in a variety of ways but the impact on the user friendliness was significant therefore the decision to include all courses in the ranking scheme was taken. This decision will be reviewed as users become familiar with the system.

[greywolf]

I was under the impression that you couldn't score on TD 1, 2 or 3 courses (excepting urban?)

That was the very strong recommendation of the rankings group....but has been omitted on IT / useability grounds - it would be extra work for club results secretaries to have to indicate which courses weren't to be ranked

or: wot Scott said...

[graeme]

I wonder how many points the winner of this course would have got (if he'd been old enough to receive a score),

If allowed, some JOK juniors would be racking up big points on
M21L as well

[EddieH]

My God Harry Ashenden might even outscore Cat

[Snail]

As the only ranked runner on the course, the only possible score Frank could be given was his existing average score (1141). But he clearly had a very bad run!

I think he is recovering from a broken foot - so strongly suspect he was only walking - and slowly!

To follow on from earlier posts, I don't see that someone in such a position should be expected to declare themselves non-competitive to avoid influencing the ranking of others. The results correctly reflect their current level of ability. The problem is with the ranking system algorithm - it needs to be able to cope with such situations - hence my earlier suggestion of removing clearly anomalous results whilst retaining reasonable fluctuations to allow for performance.

[Adventure Racer]

My God Harry Ashenden might even outscore Cat

I don't think they've actually calculated that right, given "the final 10% (rounded up) are ignored". Frank should either have got 2000 points using the small event formula "RP = 2000 – RT*(2000 – MP)/MT", since MP = 0 and MT = 0, or given no ranked runners outside "the final 10% rounded up", nobody should have got ranking points. Should also apply to Eddie's scenario of running yellow - IMHO they should apply this rule in the latter way and not award ranking points at all for courses with a single ranked runner, though it then gets peculiar with 2 ranked runners when the second is discarded from the calcs.

Alternatively if you ignore that rule, I make it Harry gets 1480 points. Good, but not quite as good as Daniel Stansfield with 1515 points. Of course these calcs are on the basis that the runners concerned and others on the course weren't already ranked - if they were it would make a small difference to Daniel's score, but a significant difference to Harry's

[Scott]

Something seems to have gone wrong with the processing of the SOL results - Black and Long Orange have been combined onto the same course at SOLs 2, 3 and 4. The same thing initially happened to SOL1 but has now been fixed - I've just emailed Mike and Caroline about the others.

[Adventure Racer]

To follow on from earlier posts, I don't see that someone in such a position should be expected to declare themselves non-competitive to avoid influencing the ranking of others. The results correctly reflect their current level of ability. The problem is with the ranking system algorithm - it needs to be able to cope with such situations - hence my earlier suggestion of removing clearly anomalous results whilst retaining reasonable fluctuations to allow for performance.

The trouble is their current score doesn't reflect their current level of ability, and that is an important input to the ranking algorithm. How exactly do you propose removing such anomalous results which is simpler than the competitor declaring themselves "non-competitive for ranking points"? No way I can see to do it automatically without the automatic algorithm removing some quite genuine results, so you're tasking somebody to trawl through the results and do it by hand?

Of course as mentioned above, given sufficient numbers on the course it doesn't really matter, but there have now been several examples of much smaller courses where an individual can have a much more significant effect on the ranking scores.

[EddieH]

I see that the British sprint champs (age group) has now been deleted altogether.

Regarding people running at different standards in small events, I see this as producing a significant number of anomalous results with so many small events being used for ranking. I have often used smaller events for specific training resulting in definitely ungenuine results - we'll have to see but I suspect that there will be a significant number of anomalously high scores at small localish events in future. Unfortunately a number of events simply say "ranking event **/**/09" it doesn't help one get any impression of what the event was.

[roadrunner]

Adventure racer (and others) are quite right - if there are enough people on a course, then one person's bad run has minimal effect.

I've always had doubts about the formula to use when there are few ranked runners on a course, as it will always give the risk of anomalous results (and that's true whatever formula you use as there just isn't enough information). Given that one of the reasons behind changing the event structure was to give more real competition by eliminating courses that only a handful of people ran, there should surely be a reasonable number of ranked runners (i.e. regular adult competitors) on all the TD4/TD5 for any event that could reasonably be considered as a ranking event. So why not simply say that courses without (say) 10 ranked runners will not be ranked?