Discussion: IOF World Rankings Insights

In last half of year I spent some time analyzing the rules of World Ranking scheme. At first I have an idea to publish whole analysis but I changed my mind (It is now more than 25p long document; not finished yet and I probably don’t have time to do it).

I realized that some parts would be interesting only for real enthusiasts; for people who are interested in details and really support idea that World Rankings should become more visible, important, and stronger tool in developing Elite orienteering around the world.

I decided to present only facts and some fractions which I have been collected without my personal conclusions. In this way I hope some debates will start around the facts. I may add some additional information based on discussion.

One of the reasons for this approach is to highlight the World Rankings itself and put it in prime-time of o-community interest for some time. My main interest to start analysis was an idea that future development of Elite orienteering needs better tool and to get it we need to change some basic principles around WRE if we want to reach our goals.

I was asking myself how World Rankings can help to strengthen this process. How should look like further progress and how big influence WRE should have on importance of professional look of Elite Orienteering.

To start
Number of WRE 2000-2012

You need to remove the stray letter at the end of the links URL.

Corrected. I will try to select the most important conclusions for each part and to give you some pointers. Maybe it is better this way than just raw data, afterall.

- In 2012 we will have an average of 1,05 WREs per country which is just a little bit more than what we had in second year of WRL in 2000.
- WRE service fee has some influence on the number of WREs from 2007 onwards; negative effect in countries where elite sport has not developed yet. Not good for importance, promotion and development of the WRL and elite orienteering around the world.
- IOF levy policy has priority compared to development aspects of the World Ranking Scheme/List.

Two hidden WRE rules: Hidden rules are not good for credibility of WRL!
- Extended qualifying year forwards to include athletes gaining ranking within next 3 months (Open Cup of Kazakhstan 2004, Grand Prix Mazovia 2004, Transylvania Open 2008, Copa Dos Países Latinos 2009, Israel Open-day 2, 2011)
- Used finisher # 2 to find enough ranked athletes within 150% (Prahova Valley Trophy 2002, Canadian Orienteering Championships - long, 2007, Istanbul 5 days 2009, Barebones 2010 Whistler)

PART 2
Regional championships and WRE status 2000-2011

Maybe not all data/info. are correct. From analysis I don't understand the IOF regional development goals based on IOF rules, plan and activities. What are general/regional achievements when we speak about Regional championships/WRE/development?

IOF Foot Orienteering Competition Rules 2011
- 1.13: The Regional Orienteering Championships (ROC) are the official events to award the titles of Regional Champions in Orienteering for each IOF Region. They are organised under the authority of the IOF and the appointed Federation.
- 1.15: The IOF World Ranking Scheme is a system to rank the World’s Elite Orienteers based on their performances in the World Games, World Orienteering Championships, World Cups, Regional Championships and World Ranking Events.

WRE guidelines 2011
Regional Championships can be WREs.

Conclusions:
- Only European and Asian Regional Championships have official rules as part of Foot O Rules 2011 (Appendix 7 and 8).
- IOF officially established Regions and Regional Elite event structure (Regional championships) with voting at GA and Federations agreed (2002/2004).
- Name Championships should be reserved and used only for WREs which are in same time National championships or IOF championships (WOC, ROC).
- Events which use name Championships should be recognized as national or as an official IOF event which is organized on international level and it is part of official elite events structure where National/IOF medals are given to the athletes. Status of the name Championships should be well known in media - no local/sub regional WRE events with name Championship should be allowed where IOF don't give out medals.
- No WRE event should be registered in IOF calendar with name Championships unless that it is truly IOF championship event / IOF medal event.
- Authority of the IOF - Today federations are still entitled to organize their own "regional championships" and use name Championships without permission from IOF? WRE status of ROC (NAOC) is still based on application form basis and not on the Rules! ROC status is simply based on WRE status and not on at least SEA role and IOF ROC medals.
- All Regional Championship events should be WRE – ROC rule in WRE Guidelines should be changed!
- IOF should pay SEA no matter how much is IOF levy for the event or WRE sanction fee! - IOF want to have Regions/ROCs so it must to invest something to develop status of the ROCs in all regions and help to raise the level of elite orienteering. It could be better to use adjusted WMOC model to sanction ROCs outside the EU.

Examples:
Baltic Championships 2002/11, Open Nordic Championships 2009, Balkan Orienteering Championships 2010, South East European Orienteering Championships 2011. IOF should proposed to organizers of these WREs to use other titles as: Cup, International, Ranking, Grand prix, Match, Meeting, Trofeo, Competition, Festival, etc. Good example for sub regional championship title is Alpe-Adria cup.

These events are normally additional WREs per country. Basically these sub regional championships events get WRE status outside of the official WRE rules (3 per Country) and Regional quota (additional 3 per Region).

Example NAOC
I see this as unfinished work by IOF. I don't have a clue what is IOF goal or intension to do about ROCs but as I have understood IOF/GA decision, federations gave up to organize international events with the name championships the next day when elected Council's Regions/ROC model proposal. With analysis I figured out that this is not true as it is also not true that IOF is willing to invest something into ROCs.

IOF should not classified (NAOC2010) on its webapage as ROC. In this respect I fully agree with the last year Tundra/Desert opinion (09 Jul 2010 17:08) about NAOC/ROC and NAOC2010.

Maybe World Rankings is dying (not part of IOF Strategic directions 2006-12, activity plan 2010-12, excluded from World Games qualification rules, new formats in World cup don't count for WRL, probably excluded also from future WOC qualification rules).

If this will happen this will be deliberately. Image and importance of WRL today is lower than 3-5-7 years ago and also interest from media-runners-federations based on rule changes is lower today than normally should be. As I understand FOC is still trying to develop it, to find new solutions but without WRL as a part of IOF Strategic directions for 2012-2018, WRL for sure will die in next 6 years or will stay just for a decoration. WRL could be a successful tool only if we see it as an important tool to rank the best Elite athletes and we use it in many different ways without pushing it out of Elite competition Rules! WRL should be also development tool in the same time. Interest for WRL should be primary within IOF but the essence of sport policy as every policy is to silently neglecting what it don't like instead of openly say what is their intention to do with WRL in the future.

One of my conclusions for 1st part.

New approach for TOP10/20:
- All results from (World Games, World Orienteering Championships, World Cups, Regional Championships) count (international results) and max. two local WRE results per country/runner (runners with only two results).
- For runners with three or more valid WRE results only one (best) local WRE result from each country should be included into calculation for total runner’s score valid for TOP 10.
- Only runners with international results or runners with two local WRE results from two different countries count for TOP 10. Strong runners which don’t compete internationally shouldn’t be so important for WRL and TOP10/TOP20.

It will give more fair approach to compare federations from different Regions. In this way rule might better force runners to become international runners and to compete internationally. Residency and nationality of runners wouldn’t have any advantages as it has today. It is normal that runners have better chances to gain good WRE points at home WREs as they are used to run at these types of terrains and also runners can gain more points because of country deeper elite field. With this kind of rule all runners will be forced to compete internationally to some extent if they want to gain other two best results.

TOP 10 should give us info. about strength of each federation based mainly on international results of their runners. Advantage of home terrain and elite strength of each country should be excluded as much as possible to get realistic TOP 10 Rankings.

In this way Federation League Table - TOP 10 will be better balanced between EU countries with lots of WREs and other countries with small number of WREs. TOP 10 could be a little bit more equal based on same conditions for everybody, especially for USA/CAN/JPN/NZL/AUS Federations.

e.g. Fredrik Johansson (SWE). He is 10th best SWE runner (60th overall) at World Ranking table on 2 Dec 2011 and he has 2nd and 3rd best result from SWE “local” WRE (Elitserien and O-Ringen). With this rule only Elitserien result would be valid for his overall score valid for TOP 10. Next best result as his 4th result (international or local WRE from other country) would be PostFinance (SUI). His score would be lower than today. O-Ringen (1241) / PostFinance (1119).

PART 3
When WRL was born we got also Purpose of Rankings Scheme.

Every federation or IOF official has probably created his/her unique opinion for what and why we need WRL. But I didn’t find any personal or official report about it. What everybody can understand is that opinions which counted the most in last decade were transformed into Rules. Based on this I could say that not many people have any kind of an opinion about WRL. Interest is rather low as IOF is not able to set a platform for wider and more dynamic exchange of ideas. Basically the only platform is FOC and people behind it. So it is only two explanations possible: 1) FOC don’t produce good ideas and solutions and that is why WRL is where it is or 2) IOF Council don’t want to accept any kind of change which will strengthen position of WRL inside of Elite orienteering.

Going into details I tried to write down my personal opinion about Purpose of Rankings Scheme.

What is more important is intention what to do with WRL in the next decade. Can FOC/IOF answer on these questions about WRL as a credible authority body? Do they seek only CREDIBILITY ON THE WORLD SPORTING STAGE or also credibility among members/O community for their previous directions? Do they do "follow-ups" by the moral obligation or we must ask them to do?

Questions:
- WRL has produced a few statistic parameters which everyone can follow. Do we need more detail information/statistics about what is going on with WRL? Do we need to produce annual WRL report?
- Which data and indicators should support Purpose of Rankings scheme?
- Do we have them or how we measure what is achieved and what isn’t achieved in one year / 2 years (activity plan) / 6 year (strategic plan) / in specific country / Region / in general?
- Which WRE guidelines rules and FOC/IOF decisions were or weren't in high correlation with Purpose of Ranking Scheme in last decade?
- How and which rules should be changed to get strong World Ranking Scheme?

PART 2
Regional championships and Regional quota

From an old thread:
Tundra/Desert:
We are at a stage that we reluctantly fill the "old quota" in the U.S., but not the new quota of 3×USA + 3×CAN + 3×(USA/CAN/Barbados, Cuba, others)/year.
AZ:
In 2012 I think we will have all 9. The US Champs (3), NAOC (3), and 3 for almost sure in Canada (COCs)

Here is second part about ROC and SEA/EA relationship and how USA/CAN can stage together more than 9 WREs per year!

There isn't a point to hold more WREs in North America if we routinely can't get enough ranked runners to the ones we do hold. The main reason we can't get enough ranked runners is because our Federation does not extend financial support to national Team members to travel to these events.

Yah, it is really hard for your runners but this geographical factor will stay forever :)

So, the other solution is to change some WRE Rules. FOC is trying to establish enough ranked runners with two hidden rules but in my opinion just this (Used finisher # 2 to find enough ranked athletes within 150%) is fair to some extent. It is logical and theoretical O.K. It is not 100% fair but also not totaly unfair rule.

As I see this problem we can’t incorporate into WRL Rules one rule with very large influence to get more local R runners. It probably wouldn’t be enough fair from sport side. But FOC direction is good as this helps regional base. Like this rule (Used finisher # 2) we might also have two different rules how to calculate 18 months avg. score. At local WREs IOF could use a rule that avg. of 2 best results count for R status and all who gets R status based on this rule gets 600 points for calculation purpose. Maybe this kind of small help could be good for some events.

In general this is the most hard nut to crack in whole WRL story but I see a chance to get a better support solutions with this approach. Small changes of set of rules could bring us better chance to maintain R Runners database on global and on regional level.

Rankings = Wankings

Intermezzo

I wouldn’t say so one-dimensional. I know this is a joke/parody for what Rankings really stand for today and for all energy going into it to maintain the Rankings. It is not very good product for many elite runners and federations but with this funny attitude we are signalizing that we as runners/o-community/federations don’t care about what is the quality and importance of it.

It is not exactly right that we act as a hobby orienteers when it comes to World Rankings issues and are not able to express professional opinion about it. If we don’t see ourselves as a sportsmen who compete in a competitive sport then we aren’t sportsmen by heart and soul but we are simple bunch of scouts (not in negative sense).

Rankings in one form or another is the essence of every (competitive) sport. IOF prefer WOC as a competitive form of Rankings but true and the most worthy Rankings should be World Rankings. WOC is show but sport values of orienteering should be developed together with World Rankings.

Yes, World Rankings is rather clumsy, old fashioned, outdated, .... Wankings but we need it. We need to make something out of it after 10 years. So we have only two options. We could all say Wankings or we could all say we need better Rankings.

I doubt that IOF President and IOF Council officials can’t say we need better Rankings very loud.

Before I started this thread I was quite sure that this approach could be a solo run.

It might be wrong to use forum because not many people in general care about WRL but I hope that open space around analysis and proposals could be filled by anyone over time. At least idea of WRL will be highlighted thru this promotional tour. For now I occupied this thread and use it almost like a personal blog and probably will ended in some kind of informal news portal about World Rankings. Maybe going backwards will be also possible over time. Here is the last part for now. Analysis about changes in formula and other things are still in working phase.

PART 4 - Rule 2.10
One of the most important pieces in this story to get a new facelift of World Rankings is in my opinion Rule 2.10. Theoretical idea is crucial here as everything else is lying on the same basic principles. So, if new rule is acceptable than it is also possible to get acceptance of all other things including new formula.

For one part I used excellent old explanation from ndobbs. I just copy pasted his opinion into my analysis as it really makes sense to me. Rule 2.10.

Thanks for any kind of comments.