Rankings in Sprints

[Ali Wood]

Forgive me if this topic has been raised before; I'm not an avid forum reader:
Are Sprint races affecting the rankings disproportionately?

Eg:
In the top few in the M55 category, look at the considerable contributions from the events

EUOC Burns Weekend incorporating… 21/01/2012
St Andrews Weekend Scottish Sprint Champs …. 03/03/2012
St Andrews Weekend incorporating Urban Race SOUL 2…. 04/03/2012

Similar story on other age groups.

I don’t understand what is producing this effect. Is it that times are more condensed in a Sprint race? Or the opposite - times more spread out proportionately?

This would not be an issue if it weren’t for the fact that it is just the best six rankings that count towards a person’s overall ranking. Some of the sprint points are grotesquely high and inevitably contribute.

Thanks, I'm sure someone will correct me.

[graeme]

There's only one sprint event on your list: you mean urban.

The total number of points available is the same, so overall there aren't more points available at sprints than any other races. The best M55s are Scots, and don't have as many racing options, so the fast guys like Dixie and Donald count the sprints. Jethro doesn't have any sprints counting! Also, there was a skew in the set up such that slower people were overranked, so in Urban races the M55s get to share with older (overrated) age groups in M55+.

The published ranking only shows you best six results, so the 50% of runners who are better at urban than forest will count mainly urban races and vice versa, even though there are far more forest events than urban ones.

Finally, a one off sprint is much more random than a longer race where errors even themselves out (ask yourself - am I more likely to go 15 or 115 minutes without a mistake). So an individual is more likely to get extreme scores in a sprint - and you only see the good extremes on the BOF list.