Discussion: WOC start list rule "doesn't" work

Magne Daehli currently 7th at WR list beat all three previous middle distance medalists (E. Bertuks, V. Novikov and L. Novikov) who are currently 16th, 33th, 38th at WR.

A good cartoon would look...
Sorry Magne, but you were not allowed to broke a rule which should be working. It was a lot of work to push this rule forward. Why, Magne?

WOC rule
http://orienteering.org/updated-special-rules-for-...

I don't understand?
What happened?? What should have happened?

It is a simple question what is more important to create a WOC start list order (a WOC medal in previous 3 years or a WR position) and what is more interesting for TV. The reason for the rule was to have all the best at the end of the start list, who are more likely to fight for the medals. If WR would be used Magne should be starting in red group TOP 10. A marginal rule, but still WR would be better.... IOF spent a lot of money on WR in the last 15 years and the result is just "no comment"
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

Do you have a lot of examples like this, or just one?

I thought the beauty of sport-as-entertainment is that unlike a film, book or play (..well maybe for the most part for the latter) the outcome is undecided at the beginning?

Isn't Magne 7th because he did so well yesterday and he already got points for the race? What was his WR position before the race? Not that good I think because he started early?

You should ask, did last starters do well and better than earlier started, were they better, did they deserve they start place, was WR that good for predicting performance. And did some of the early starters get disadvantage for having to start early for not having yet so much WR points for various reasons like injuries or having babies. To me it looks late starters did not do that well and some of them j like Heines and Procházka just got dragged over half of the course by medalist so you should count them out (no forking and 90 sec start interval). And think qualification race alternative, would it be fairer to let them deserve those last start slots by doing well in that qual race.

@Jagge
This system was designed with no qual race in mind. It is no use to do the whole analysis, my point is that WR still more accurately award present achievements than only 3 year old medal even that WR has its own problems. If people would believe that, than they would at least try to develop WR as a tool for various problems and benchmarks. In the past it was used more than today. Yes, some can't afford to travel or able to go to WC races, etc and the system is not perfect for all (injury, babies) but still which sports give this kind of support for past medalists?
It is also a media and psychological question. You are worth something only and only when you get a WOC medal. If not than maybe 30 best in random order would still be more media friendly rule and more fair. Favor one runner against other runner based on the medal is not doing sport any good.

Some disagree with you. Around here WR system is laughing stock, especially being that lately for giving excessive points to Finnish champs B and C final runners, better than A final runners despite those being far better and running about 1 min/km faster in same terrain. True laughing stock this WR system.

The fact it was designed no quals in mind does not mean we are not allowed to criticize it. Why WR did not predict this Knapova doing well?
http://ranking.orienteering.org/PersonView?person=...

It's hardly the fault of the start list rules that Matthias Kyburz (last starter in the men's race) had a blowout.

Of course, i get your point and of course your constructive criticizem is what i think also attract people to read AP. WR chiefs made quite a lot "off the map errors" but that is what we have. At least Kyburz ballance this but still do we need this rule at all?

That sort of fault seems to be a general problem with that form of ranking system generally. There must be better ways. For small fields I prefer resolving an incomplete matrix of paired comparisons. But that's not going to be plausible with a matrix large enough to hold all international elite runners. Are there any other technical solutions?

I agree @TheInvisibleLog re using a matrix of paired comparisons... But will there ever actually be a field large enough that a modern computer won't crunch through the calculations in less than a few tenths of a second?

Now with split WOC qualification(s) will be back and start order problem solved.

Depends on qualification rules. I read that one option is also a pre-qualified runners for the final. If everyone would need to qualify than you are 99% right, because the rules for start order for qualifications can change as well. Let's wait.

It says there will be 1 qualification in Forest WOC: http://orienteering.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06...

What and how? They don't know... "Detailed qualification rules will be proposed at end of the Project in 2016"

The '1 qualification' is only a proposal at this stage - it doesn't form part of the motion which was formally passed. (We tried to move an amendment to have 2 qualification races but since 1 qualification race wasn't part of the motion, the amendment wasn't relevant).

I imagine there are some Americans who are not particularly impressed with the start list rules at this particular moment....

Yeah, what's the story with Ali starting first???

"Yeah, what's the story with Ali starting first???"

Don't know but it does mean we (WOC IT team) will need to make sure we're ready to go way earlier than I first thought! :)

Checked the ranking list - Ali is ranked in the 300s because she doesn't have a full set of scores (missing last year's NAOC long didn't help).

where is the ranking list beyond top 100? It seems difficult to find on the iof website. Thanks!

You need to click on the link for full rankings as of a certain date, then set your search filters accordingly (including ticking the 'all' box).

It is immediately apparent that Ali is ranked higher than a lot of the runners starting after her. Is there more to the rules than that?

Ali with no full set of scores made me remember this http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...
Note also kofol's comments about ski o.

Does the TV coverage start with Ali? Seems like she'll be getting a lot of air time, and even well after she's done, her name will be at or near the top of the splits for a long time.

The runners are divided into groups by ranking, so the 10 best ranked go into group 1, the 11th-25th best ranked into group 2, and so on to the 56th-70th best ranked into group 5. I assume this means there are 55 (or more) runners in the field ranked better than Ali (and she was unlucky to be drawn out first of group 5).

(One other I checked - Laurina Neumann, whose start position indicates she's in group 4 - is ranked better than Ali).

One of the issue with start list is also that TV window is very tight for the best runners to give LIVE interviews after the race. TV stop broadcasting soon after the race is finished. We want more visibility but not able to focus on athletes to make them more human, more attractive for spectators.

If you like skiing you know how things are going.

This was my proposal posted in the thread link above which i think would be more TV friendly and more fair to all runners.

"One solution would be to copy the rules from skiing (downhill); eg first starts group 2, then all the medalist from the previous WOCs who are currently not in group 1 or group 2 based on WR, then group 1, group 3 and then all the other groups. I believe that WOC goal should be to minimize the importance of the start list order and to give the recognition to all WR achievements.

The best placing runners would have time to give the first interviews already during the race and if someone from the rear set a good intermediate time it would be at least interesting for arena spectators to focus on him. It is always interesting to see a decent result from someone who is not a favorite. This concept has been tested in many sports."

And It would be interesting to see a few analysis of TV viewers' habits from previous WOC. It is hard to expect from non-orienteers that they will be interested to watch 1h to finally see the best runners in action. Probably most of them stop watching in first 5-10-15 minutes. So it is lost opportunity to get them into orienteering. TV wants instant action, a few minutes to get viewers into the mood and then show. Last 20 min of broadcasting could be used to give more info about athletes, sport, coaches, etc and show some interesting routes from slower athletes to give more info what runner did wrong. It is hard to explain to non-orienteers different type of mistakes when they watch the best, because it looks so easy.

Rumour has it that the race starts at 10 am but quarantine doesn't close until 11. The race occurs in a cellular black hole and no information about the courses will be posted to the Internet until after the quarantine closes. That means that there will likely be little information on Ali for most of her course.