Results and Rankings.

[jab]

The change that has been made, to rank all 2nd year 16s, does not appear to be consistent with the summary of the Board meeting last week when it was agreed that juniors could be ranked for events that occurred on or after their 16th birthday. That's not a complaint (I think all 16s should be ranked), but it seems a bit odd that the board agree something one week and implement something different the following week.

[DM]

The change that has been made, to rank all 2nd year 16s, does not appear to be consistent with the summary of the Board meeting last week when it was agreed that juniors could be ranked for events that occurred on or after their 16th birthday. That's not a complaint (I think all 16s should be ranked), but it seems a bit odd that the board agree something one week and implement something different the following week.

Agree it looks inconsistent and agree all 16s should be ranked. As pointed out earlier, unless BOF know the exact ages of all concerned then implementing the "only after 16th birthday" option would be impossible, unless all 16s gave this detail (unlikely) and it is recorded correctly (unlikely - for the past 2 years I have amended details on the renwal form and these have not been acted on). So, the apparent change of decision may well be due to the fact that all peoples birth dates were initially set to 1st January in the membership system. Some may have changed them to actual ones. Whatever, the new plan will work with 1st Jan or real birthdates.

Keep banging away and we may get 1st year 16s in as well......

[Miner]

I've got a query - how does arriving late for your start affect the rankings point calculations? My total time included the 20 minute delay in arriving at the start so the time for the course appears much slower and hence the points calculated are much lower. It doesn't make much difference to me as it wasn't a great run anyway, but I wondered how it affected the calculation of other peoples's points on that course?

[Blanka]

My total time included the 20 minute delay in arriving at the start so the time for the course appears much slower and hence the points calculated are much lower.

That is your total time then, which will be used for calculating he rankings. How else did you think it would work? In terms of the grand scheme of things, I don't think it's any different to someone making a 5 or 10-minute mistake at an event one week, it's just that your 20 minute mistake happened on the way to number 1...

[Spookster]

I wondered how it affected the calculation of other peoples's points on that course?

Calculation of points is based on the mean time of all ranked runners. Your (extended) time is among that mean time calculation, so it makes a small difference. If there were lots of ranked runners on your course, the difference would be negligibly small.

[mike g]

The difference might be negligible if Miner was the only late starter on his course, but perhaps not if there were several others.

I started 83 minutes late at the JK sprint after being stuck in traffic, and there were 4 or 5 other late starters on my course. Initially the results contained our extended times - 102 mins instead of 19 in my case. The controller accepted our excuses for lateness and our start times were adjusted in the final version of the results, but if the extended times had stood it would surely have made a significant difference to points for everyone on the course.

[Scott]

The controller accepted our excuses for lateness and our start times were adjusted in the final version of the results, but if the extended times had stood it would surely have made a significant difference to points for everyone on the course.

Except that with times such as 102mins you would probably all have been in the bottom 10% of finishers on your course, and so your times would have been ignored for calculating the mean and SD anyway.

[sloaner]

How come the winner of M40 at the British Championships can score less points than the winner of the Brown (an M40) at the BOK TROT/ to me this is just wrong.

[Oldman]

How come the winner of M40 at the British Championships can score less points than the winner of the Brown (an M40) at the BOK TROT/ to me this is just wrong.

As someone who knows little of the ranking detail, I think this is not only possible but perfectly acceptable. If the BOKTrot runner significantly out-performed many other top-ranked runners he deserves many more points than when at BOC, a runner does well but does not significantly outperform many other top-ranked runners.
There is no weighting to give BOC higher status than BOKTrot (or any other ranked event) as far as I now, and therefore this points allocation is OK.

Have you read the ranking details, sloaner?

[Roger]

How come the winner of M40 at the British Championships can score less points than the winner of the Brown (an M40) at the BOK TROT/ to me this is just wrong.

The BOKtrot winner found the correct routes through the gorse; the rest of us didn't. Mistakes or inaccuracies were expensive.

[sloaner]

I think my point is, that it just seems wrong that at an event where all the top competitors run (except the JK winner) you score less than an event where there are very few runners.

Yes, the winner at the BOK Trot won rather easily whereas others ran well below par, but if rankings are to be of any use, then this sort of thing detracts from them in my opinion.

[Big Jon]

I think my point is, that it just seems wrong that at an event where all the top competitors run (except the JK winner) you score less than an event where there are very few runners.

Yes, the winner at the BOK Trot won rather easily whereas others ran well below par, but if rankings are to be of any use, then this sort of thing detracts from them in my opinion.

I'd back this up - the leading M45 runner has all his ranking points from regional events - none from JK & BOC (where he has performed very well). It appears possible to get higher points if one peaks for a local bog standard regional event which other people are training through than by going to the top races of the year (JK & BOC) and running very well, but against a field of other competitors who are also running hard.
It strikes me the ranking list is not just comparing apples with pears, but comparing apples with pears with power-tools with cuddly toys ie pointless.

[Adventure Racer]

So how exactly do you correct such "anomolies"? It's due to the way the ranking system works, and the fact they won easily - you can hardly put a factor in the system to account for unusual difficulties in events such as the importance of finding the right route through gorse. According to all available evidence it was a better run than the winner of the M40 class at BOC. Yes there are still problems with the system, but I don't think this is one. No reason at all why BOC should result in the highest points scores for class winners even if it has the highest class field of the year.

[sloaner]

I totally disagree Adventure Racer.... I'm sure that in any other sport the quality of the field is crucial to any ranking.

I'm sure that in golf, you would score more points for winning the British Open or Masters than you would the Portuguese Open, therefore winning an event where the field is expected to be of better quality e.g. BOC or JK should result in far more points than a Brown Course where there are only about a dozen competitors... if the ranking list has any meaning there should be a higher weighting on the bigger events.... I'm sure this used to be the case.

[greywolf]

the leading M45 runner has all his ranking points from regional events - none from JK & BOC

Nobody on the rankings list has any points from BOC - points from BOC 2009 (held in February) dropped out months ago and points from BOC 2010 last saturday will be incorporated on Thursday....And those 6 "bog standard" regional events you mention include 1 National event and 1 National Championship...