 PaulS
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Posted: 13 January 2004, 6:37 AM
Just glancing at some of those Junior times for the Southern Six Day, especially in the boys,the winning times were, on some days twice that, or three times that of the EWT.
Now I understand that a lot of the top juniors were not there, but it doesn't look good for next year when the grades are moving up. Is four months enough to get people up to scratch? I'm picking that there's gonna be a lot of people entering B classes. Was it correct to assume that an orange level orienteer could move up to red, and be good enough, in four months. Now I don't fit into this category, but I know some people who do.
One must also query some of the rankings in the Juniors. How does a person, who only attended one ranking event in 2003 have a higher ranking than the New Zealand M18 Classic-Distance Champion? Also, one bad run all year and your ranking is screwed. Surely some adjustments need to be made to allow for this. It seems like the less events you do, the better chance you have of not screwing up your ranking.
Paul
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Greg
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Posted: 13 January 2004, 7:19 AM
Was this the juniors fault or the course setters? Don't screw up and your ranking won't look like crap
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Michael
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Posted: 13 January 2004, 9:56 AM
I haven't seen anyone claim that by making this change then abilities would suddenly improve. Rather, it was said that abilities had already improved to the extent that many young orienteers were running up. One would expect these ones to move back to their proper age classes. And yes the others should run B classes.
On rankings: it would be better if each posting deals with one topic.
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That Claire Girl
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Posted: 14 January 2004, 3:09 AM
Did you not also notice PaulS, that almost ALL courses/grades were well over the EWT?!?! Even the Elites? This would I think point towards course setters rather than juniors faults would it not!?
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Bryan
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Posted: 14 January 2004, 9:00 AM
On the rankings issue there were many ranking events for 2003 (ANZAC,
NZ, Area events). Thomas Reynolds is registering because there were two ranking events (one for each day) for AOA 2003 - he did quite well compared to the only other competitor - you only need two ranking days to register in the rankings.
The process that calculates the rankings is mainly automatic.
It is difficult to rank juniors automatically as there are usually very few runners and sometimes strange rankings can happen.
Ross Morrison had some very good events at the ANZAC carnival.
The ranking points for the NZ champs were quite high compared to other events during the year - the rankings are based who is running and how they did in relation to each other.
You can 'screw' your ranking by having a bad run (eg DNF, DSQ, long time)- but if you run more than 4 ranking events this bad run can be ignored (as only the 4 best are averaged).
For more information read how the rankings are calculated on the website (www.mtlees.com/nzof)
Cheers,
Bryan
NZOF Statistician
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Dave Mcc
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Posted: 15 January 2004, 7:03 AM
So bryan let me get this straight. It seems to me that to get a correct and accurate ranking does it matter that hardly anyone is there. Because i understood it and we talked about this at the junior o camp that the only real time it can be properly done is at nationals. Not being picky or anything but if simon addison for example did not run how are the times meant to be compared against his. I know that doesnt make sense but i feel that running better than one other person does not validate any reason to shoot to the top. To get to the top you should be able to pull out a win against ALL those on the list.
Now i have heard that your top 4 races count. Does this mean over all time or the last 4 races you did. Also in the future is it possible to put out notice that an event is ranking.
just a few thoughts...... hope you all had a good 6 day.
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Michael
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Posted: 15 January 2004, 7:25 AM
Dave, to satisfy your ranking requirements we'll have to abandon ranking for juniors.
New Zealand has barely enough data for vets let alone juniors who only spend two years in a class and don't travel widely, but I think "some" conclusions can be drawn from the scheme. Basically it works on the premise that if A beats B in an event, and if B beats C in another event, then A is presumed to be better than C.
Like it or lump it.
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addison
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Posted: 15 January 2004, 9:00 AM
Well looking at this then from a statistical point of view, perhaps a requirement of a certain number of already ranked runners is needed in a grade before the people can use it as a ranking event. This will eliminate these rogue events where people can win by hours against the only other unranked runner. This also will be a bit more work but could maybe easily be coded?
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Bryan
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Posted: 16 January 2004, 1:43 AM
Rankings events are all A, B level events (NZ champs, area champs, multidays). Multidays and carnivals
are split up so that there are ranking points for each separate day.
Sometimes South Island challenge events are included if I can get the results - I've done this so that there are more events - sometimes South Island orienteers can be missed out if there are not enough events.
There will always be problems with ranking juniors in New Zealand using a statistical (automatic program) approach. If you want a better method this would have to be done manually with
selectors subjectively deciding on who is the best.
I have experimented with different criteria and come up with something that works well when there are many runners in a class (eg > 5 competitors at most events). Some of the criteria I use are:
- at least 2 rankings events for each competitor before they appear on the rankings
- average of best 4 within ranking period
- only need to have one ranked runner for ranking points to be calculated for an event
Now, I could make the requirements stricter (it wouldn't take much - just a small change in the code) eg at least 4 events, at least 3 ranked runners running - this is what most overseas ranking systems use but I started out with this a few years back and found that for some small classes I would end up with only a few ranked people - at least the current way ends up with most people appearing in the rankings even if some people disagree with the order of the rankings.
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Martin
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Posted: 18 January 2004, 2:01 PM
Back to the original topic, if you see any of the orange courses, especially those at Naseby, you will see that they aren't your average orange course, also take note that there were quite a few people running up grades so that they could run at a higher level. eg. people running orange when their age grade is yellow, and more so, people running up into the red classes who 'should' be doing orange. The changes to the difficulty levels in the junior classes will eliminate some of this running up grades.
Martin
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PaulS
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Posted: 19 January 2004, 3:18 AM
No one to follow I think that was the problem.
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Martin
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Posted: 19 January 2004, 4:12 AM
Should've been there Paul, six quality days of o which would change your perspective on whats worth grizzling about. (Would you have been following??)
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Dave Mcc
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Posted: 19 January 2004, 10:06 AM
Thanks for the clarification. Makes it a little more easier to understand. if a beats b and then does it again in another race does that mean b goes down a place for a aswell
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