Arnold wrote:The one thing I can't figure out though, how does the ranking system determine the absolute points available? I can see how it figures out the relative points (eg if I beat person X who is ranked higher than me, I should get more points), but how does it know where to start?
By taking the prior rankings of you and person X (and all other runners) to calculate the par score for the course - and the actual running times of you and person X (and all other runners) to calculate the par time for the course. So somebody running the course in the par time will be awarded the par ranking.
The distribution of those prior rankings vs times is used to calculate how many points are added/subtracted for each second faster/slower than par.
So let's say you have 10 competitors on a course and they take 31,32,33...40 minutes. What if those same competitors all took 10 minutes longer so 41,42...50 minutes because they all made big mistakes. In theory they should all get lower points but I assume the system can't tell the difference, so the competitors in question are lucky to all get higher scores than they deserve?
Avoiding making costly mistakes is the thing that distinguishes orienteering from a simple running race. If a course is technically difficult, bur fairly planned, such that everyone is accumulating mistakes then those that accumulate fewer mistakes deserve a higher ranking.
It would be unusual for every single competitor on a race to make a 10 minute howler though. These are likely to be a small proportion of the runners - and the system deals with that by running a two stage process and eliminating from the calculation the rankings and times of those who's scores are a long way off their ranking for whatever reason.