Are "Black" and "National Rankings" incompatible ?

[DJM]

It's worth reiterating that comparison of mins/km between different courses is not at all an exact science and must therefore be done with caution and, indeed, a pinch of salt.

Why? Well different courses can have different average leg lengths, thus the fraction of time in amber/red mode will vary from course to course. They can also go into different parts of the map, so one course could be on average "slower" than another. Some courses can have a larger percentage of track running than others and thus be on average "faster", etc etc.

The Eccleshall Routegadget files showed that some courses had two legs across the large OOB area, whilst others had one. Since the advertised course lengths didn't appear to take deviation round the OOB into consideration, then mins/km times on different courses will be disproportionally affected.

These things also affect "spreads" of times on different courses, and this counts against Graeme's suggestion that you might be able to extrapolate data from larger class courses and apply them to smaller class courses.

Summary - take mins/km comparisons between different courses with a (sometimes large) pinch of salt!

[EddieH]

It may not be ideal if you expect to get rankings at a particular event, but hardly in the same league of disappointment as having a British Champs course voided.

Before this change was made there were numerous absurd anomolies on small participation courses. If these are reinstated the whole list will revert to being utterly meaningless.

[Sunlit Forres]

The problem is that it's not just Black courses that are affected - I'm told that Short Green and Very Short Green courses have also been missing out on ranking points as a result of being inquorate.

According to the Draft Event Guidelines (Jan 2009) for regional and local colour-coded (levels 2 & 3) events, the very short green doesn't exist. I know that it's still there in the existing guidelines, but does anyone know whether/when this new draft will be implemented, or will it all change with the new 4-tier system? Getting rid of the very short green would help remove the issue to which Scott refers.

I personally think that having a course to suit every conceivable physical ability is overkill. Up here we don't often have events that justify anything other than 7 or 8 courses, and nobody seems to mind running/walking 400 metres or so further than the distance that their age would theoretically entitle them. Even the larger regional events (Scottish O League) are just 12 courses (with no very short green) and I have yet to see a mass protest by W75s.

[greywolf]

... Short Green and Very Short Green courses have also been missing out .... not everyone who would want to run VSGreen is necessarily capable of (enjoyably) running a Green-length course.

True but you have to question why a small event would bother putting on both SGreen and VSGreen when the difference between them (33% & 28% respectively of a 67 min Black course) is probably less than the margin of error of the planner & controller's understanding and implementation of the course length guidelines..*
...and given that across much of the country these events will also be offering a Light Green course (30% of Black) at exactly the same technical difficulty

*Sunlit: the current guidelines are here

[Jayne]

I would have thought using the distribution the most similar course would be a fair compromise, so for black you could use brown for very short green you could use short green etc...

[graeme]

I assume this is a syptom of the point Graeme is making.

It's a good point, but not the one I'm making in this thread. M21s / Black course runners are underranked, I don't know why, but lack of opportunity is only part of it and taking away their chances to score certainly wont help. I think the problem must have been in starting up the list.

this counts against Graeme's suggestion

No it doesn't, because I'm NOT proposing using scaled mins/km. Quite the opposite: I said small numbers still give a reasonable average time, the problem is with the spread.
Any effect on the ratio of spread to average time, which is certainly smaller than the vagarities of bingo controls, tracking up, following, weather changes and a whole bunch of other unfairnesses which we happily live with.

I would put money on this. In fact I have: its perfectly possible to win on the (US) tote using statistics from the (large) win pool to inform you which horse to back in the (small)
place pool. Same idea. Unfortunately, you can't win a LOT of money, and horseracing is very boring: you're better off playing blackjack (until they've given you so much free drink it's too hard to concentrate).

I have yet to see a mass protest by W75s.

Maybe you don't talk to the right people, I certainly have, both W75s and other who want a very short course! It seems obvious that a small event shouldn't put on as many courses, but less clear why it shouldn't still span the whole range (if terrain allows). the only rationale I can see for having courses only a few % different in length is if the start list is too big.

[Homer]

[. M21s / Black course runners are underranked, I don't know why, but lack of opportunity is only part of it and taking away their chances to score certainly wont help. I think the problem must have been in starting up the list.

Black course runners seem to have done well at Ecclesall which does seem to buck the trend. Maybe a sign that the scheme is now bedding down?

[graeme]

Black course runners seem to have done well at Ecclesall

Where our elite club champion Mr Gallier got almost as many points as Mrs Spookster and just the 15 less than Barrie Speake. Maybe better when Barrie turns M70 in a couple of months.

Incidently: is there actually an example of a black course runner getting an unreasonably high score before the sub-10 rule came in? Or is it just another hypothetical problem used to beat up on the M21s when the real problem is elsewhere (i.e. overranking and randomness on very short courses, exacerbated when they have small numbers)?

[Scott]

Here's a pretty good example of some non-Black course non-M21s getting an unreasonably high score on a course that did have ten runners

[Jayne]

Trying to get my head round the rankings so I've had a look at some of my own scores, and I'm confused.

Can someone explain these:

Warwick:
1st Place = 32:17, Me (34th)= 41:01, 978 points
London:
1st Place = 46:29, Me (17th) = 60:19, 1084 points.

Why fewer points for the Warwick race?

[Sunlit Forres]

Here's a pretty good example of some non-Black course non-M21s getting an unreasonably high score on a course that did have ten runners

If the ranking list is there to determine the best orienteers, it defeats me why Light Green should count at all. The technical standard's easier and often so too is the physical difficulty. If I were one of the ranking-conscious W75s that Graeme talks to I think I'd run light green every time!

Maybe we should get totally inclusive and have a long light green, extremely long light green, short light green and a very short light green (perhaps we have some of these already Greywolf ).

[paul]

Here's a pretty good example of some non-Black course non-M21s getting an unreasonably high score on a course that did have ten runners

A good example of older juniors being asked by their club to run the LG course as it was a compass sport cup match, when they're normally be running blue or brown. I recall they went on a training run immediately afterwards to get in some distance!

[Clive Coles]

The Thetford Thrash weekend next year has already announced the planners are setting a short short green for the W75s

[Scott]

A good example of older juniors being asked by their club to run the LG course as it was a compass sport cup match, when they're normally be running blue or brown.

I'm not questioning whether they should have been running Light Green - I'm just not sure their runs were deserving of the two highest individual scores in the ranking list in the past 12 months (substantially larger than the third place score of 1426).

I think part of the problem here is the bizarrely skewed distribution of times you get when you arbitrarily discard more than half the runners on the course from the ranking calculations for being under 16. This, which was for quite some time the highest score by a woman anywhere on the list, is another good example of the same thing.

[graeme]

Scott,

You talk about Loch Ordie.

To be fair to Charlotte, it was a very good run. She was the fastest woman by some considerable margin on any technical course that day, and the 6-day event has a lot of women running.
Had she run similar mins/km on my (or other) similar-length courses, she'd have got similar points.

But despite being a lot slower than the winner of M21E, she scored more points.
So that event is more evidence of the anti-M21 bias than of poor statistics.