British Night Champs - Bentley Woods

[Gnitworp]

Thus including night events in the rankings would skew them in favour of the better orienteers.

As does daylight orienteering on technical terrain.

[Arnold]

But if you exclude Night-O, as NeilC says, you might as well start excluding lots of other "skewed" events:
- Sprints (usually much smaller distribution of times)
- Urban races (ditto)
- Mass starts (not many around, but ditto again)

Which soon only leaves traditional classic races...

[Scott]

But if you exclude Night-O, as NeilC says, you might as well start excluding lots of other "skewed" events:
- Mass starts (not many around, but ditto again)

Mass starts are indeed excluded, for precisely that reason.

[NeilC]

We got ranking points at SLOW's OK Nuts mass start event in December.

[Scott]

Indeed we did, but according the rules we shouldn't have. I have to admit that that didn't even occur to me until now.

But seeing as it has been done, it would be interesting to see how "anomalous" people think the points from that event have ended up being. At my end of the field they look about right - maybe a little low if anything.

(No ranking points to be had at the JOK Chasing Sprint, I'm afraid, although there are FCC and UK Cup points on offer instead.)

[NeilC]

(No ranking points to be had at the JOK Chasing Sprint, I'm afraid, although there are FCC and UK Cup points on offer instead.)

Can't we get points for the prologue?

[Miner]

I don't understand why including the "anomalous" results from the British Night Champs in the UK Cup series is OK, but including them in the ranking list is not.

[Scott]

(No ranking points to be had at the JOK Chasing Sprint, I'm afraid, although there are FCC and UK Cup points on offer instead.)

Can't we get points for the prologue?

You certainly could under rules. It just seemed a bit silly to me to award ranking points based on performance in half a competition. I assume this is the same reason that I didn't get any ranking points for one of my best runs of 2010, in the British Sprints qualifiers

[Scott]

I don't understand why including the "anomalous" results from the British Night Champs in the UK Cup series is OK, but including them in the ranking list is not.

I think the difference is that the ranking points are based on distribution of times. As I understand it, the argument against including night (or chasing/mass start) events is that finishing times are more likely to be "anomalously distributed" than day events. (I should add that personally, I would be quite happy to see night events included in the rankings - I'm just trying to explain why they're not.)

The UK Cup, FCC and Masters Cup all have position-based scoring systems which are less susceptible to such things.

[NeilC]

I assume this is the same reason that I didn't get any ranking points for one of my best runs of 2010, in the British Sprints qualifiers

You need to get both rounds registered as an event on the BOF system to allow you to upload the qualifier results. For the age class sprints both rounds were ranked.

Mathematically inclined people are telling us that the ranking system needs more events where there is much mixing of age classes. JOK sprint does this nicely.

[Scott]

Okay - I'll go and speak to the club committee and other event officials about it and see what the consensus is. It would seem a bit odd to me - like awarding points based on the half-time score at a football match - but I am willing to be convinced otherwise.

[NeilC]

Any different to the JK where the champions are decided on the cumulative time of the two individual days?

[Scott]

Or, I guess, the Caddihoe, which normally awards ranking points based on the first day?

I would say that the different days of the JK do seem more distinct somehow than the two rounds of the CS, although I couldn't but my finger on why. Not everyone treats the JK as an single competition: some people only come to one day of the JK, or come to both days but run different classes on each. I don't think many people do that with the CS. But I do see your point - we'll have a think about it and get back to you.

[Gnitworp]

Maybe, to get rid of the 'anomalies', we could get rid of the orienteering, and just have the rankings based on cross country races

[NeilC]

I don't think many people do that with the CS.

Quite a few only run the prologue. Especially when they are down to do the first lap of the Harvester later that evening.