Discussion: World Ranking system to change

Would this be a good time to ask what the aim and benefits of the WRE are? I had a similar thread 18 months ago.
http://www.attackpoint.org/discussionthread.jsp/me...

Some of it simply boils down to what we want to make of it and the importance we assign to it. There is nothing about WREs on the Orienteering Canada web site - no links to latest results or rankings of Canadians. Three Canadians competed in the WRE in Andalucia back in February - not a word of reporting about it. My daughter competed in 6+ WREs in 2013; not a word of reporting about it (other than sort of buried in her blog posts). Could anyone name the top WRE ranked male and female Canadian orienteers? Giving them more profile may result in more interest from the athletes as well as the general O population. What if a cash prize was awarded at the end of the year for the top Canadian male and female? Personally an event being a WRE would be more likely to attract me to travel to it.

Overall it is hard that anyone will feel the difference and importance of it compare to the old WRE system.

If they don't/can't able to define the benefits for Elite I would hope that they can make at least some benefits for local WREs as they consist ~80% of all races and contribute important sum of money to the system. WRE system costs money and it is not good that only small group of people close to FootO commission see the long-term benefits ("what the aim and benefits of the WRE are?").

If we can't go back to free fee application procedure for whole system than maybe free free should be at least valid for 3rd WOC group as an incentive to promote/develop elite orienteering. If organizers from these countries have an interest to organize event by the IOF WRE rules this should be seen as a improvement compare to last decade. IOF could at least try it to make some changes to support development. They can't loose nothing because many member countries don't organize WREs today. If there are enough technical skills to organize WRE event it would be at least great to see the truly world WRE calendar and promote it as such.

What are the aim and benefits of WRE races? I know nothing of the aim, but I benefit from the benefits.

WREs don't actually matter much in the grand scheme of North American orienteering, as pointed out by upnorthguy. We give them no credit. But as a competitor, I find they serve a fundamental purpose, which is to provide a uniform ranking system that is supposedly fair across continents, so that I can compare myself with athletes all over the world. There may be no material value to that, but at an emotional level, it means a lot to me to fight for good points just so that I can look at that list and see where I stand. I imagine that other athletes of a competitive nature do the same thing.

Another advantage of WREs is that they are held to certain standards. When I travel to a WRE meet, I know that an event advisor will have taken the time to go over all the aspects of the meet, nit-picking through the rules to make sure everything is fair. It's a badge on your meet that your meet will be of international calibre for the elite classes (and hopefully there is some trickle-down or shared benefits for the other classes). That alone is enough reason for me to travel far for these meets.

I assume this is all driven by the idea of using the Ranking List to allocate start times at WOC. It would be a bit silly to get a prime spot in the Long on the basis of Sprint results (they've obviously given up in the idea that Long and Middle are different in any meaningful way).
The 50 point bonus at World Cups will turn the WOC startlist into a World Cup attendance prize. A cunning plan from IOF to boost their failing brand among WOC-hopefuls. WOC selectors may have an interesting dilemma of whether to send their best domestic runners out as foliage-trampling fodder, or higher-ranked expats who can afford the time/money to go to WC.

Out now:
http://iofranking.osport.ee/iofranking/

...and so the new WR system had it first trial at EOC this weekend.
Even its sternest critics cannot have expected quite this level of epic fail.
Women's winner Signe Soes found herself starting early, without GPS, long before any putative TV coverage would have begun.
Needless to say, either the old WR system or the quali results would have had her starting much later.

She won didn't she? Why do we have to have a favoured group always getting late starts? Isn't this sweeter because she roughed it with the plebs?

The point of the late start group (for the IOF) is to have TV/spectator interest. Which is undermined (by the IOF) by not having an accurate way to set up the start list.

Proper orienteering enthusiasts can just congratulate the winner. (but good luck trying to win in a Scottish summer off an early start)

Scotland can still switch back to the qualie system, no?

Signe Soes wouldn't have had a good ranking under the old system either since she doesn't have enough ranking events in the last year. One of the things that's being investigated is having some kind of 'protected ranking' for people coming back from long-term absences (injury, pregnancy etc.), but nothing's been implemented yet.

@blairtrewin. Soes was ranked 27th according to 6prog on the old system before the EOC middle - good enough to make the red group. She jumped to 15th afterwards - IOF have her 49th. Having few races hurts, but having the minimum number is not so bad if the scores are comparable

Her 6prog old system scores are...
1362 1259 1377 1214

Her IOF new system scores are...
1450 1138 1010 992

Do you really think she's that erratic?

Something doesn't look right there - the basic scoring algorithm hasn't changed so scores from most "normal" WREs should be similar under both systems (and I don't think the Danish events she got most of her points from would be exceptions to that). Will investigate further.

Is the new algorithm published somewhere? I found stuff specifying maximum and minimum scores, but nothing between. And nothing about starting conditions either. I ran a student project on the UK ranking list which had some interesting conclusions, in particular it can take many years for the effect of the initial points to disappear, regardless of algorithm (unless you do some recursive looping early on).

The formula (7.4.1 in http://orienteering.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/12...) is identical to the old formula for all 'ordinary' WR events except the following:

(a) events where the winner would have scored more than 1400 or fewer than 800 (neither likely to apply to a domestic race in Denmark - in general the only events generating 1400+ scores were those with very deep international fields, like Portugal O-Meeting and some Nordic elite races)
(b) events with fewer than 10 ranked runners (again, unlikely for a Danish domestic race).

(The scores won't necessarily be identical, though, because runners who have WOC/World Cup in their ranking scores will drag the average score of the field up - but not enough to make a huge difference).

As noted above, more investigation is called for - my guess is that something might have gone not as intended with the annual rebasing to an average of 1000 and/or the seeding of the initial list.

The problem with the new very low WRE points in non-WOC/WC races is not the formula (which is approximately the same as before). The problem is that the start of the ranking is set to July 2012 - i.e. all runners start with 0 points July 1st 2012 (except for some points from regional championships, e.g. EOC 2012). That means that:

- A winner in a non World Cup race in July 2012 gets 800 points - even if the race really should have been worth 1300-1400 points (if the ranking would have been going on for a few years)
- A winner in a WOC race in July 2012 gets 1500 points (or 1450 in the qualifications)

This means that there is a huge difference in WOC/WC races compared to "normal" WRE races in July 2012 - a lot larger than it should be. This difference gets smaller by time, but it takes a long time for it to converge to where it should really be (I am trying to do calculations to test this, but not all data required is available at the ranking webpage - looks like I might get access to some later on though). Runners who are not "in contact" with runners who are in contact with WOC/WC runners live in their "own world" of very low points.

The correct way of doing this would in my opinion have been to either start all runners with 0 points 5-6 years ago (the data is in the system, so it is feasible) or to start at July 1st 2012 with points from the old IOF WRE ranking. I would have preferred the latter - that would be a better way to seeding the system. Unfortunately it is too late to do anything with this now.

Is it too late for them to correct the system now?

This will have a massive effect on WOC this year as well as WOC 2015? And so on until this world of low scorers is filtered out.

I'll be following this up through IOF channels. Don't think it's too late to make changes, especially as the initial seeding system is not defined in the rules.

@ColmM ..."world of low scorers is filtered out"...
But isn't it wonderfully inclusive that performances by M50 codgers like me are determining the WOC start list?
@ndobbs
If you want to determine the Irish WOC final qualifiers at a race in Scotland we'll be delighted to host you ;)

Weighting factor IP
At many races IP will be different than = 1. I am also wondering about this situation where let's say winner didn't compete in last 18 months and it is without WR points.

Based on formulas it will be impossible to calculate final points because of IP formula. (e.g. IP = 1500/Winner’s unweighted calculated score)
Very unlikely, but it is possible that the winner is a fresh junior or someone who decide to comeback or at some local races.

In old rules there was information that at least 3 runners needed to calculate WR points. Now it is needed only 1. In theory it is possible that Runner (1500, 1500, 1450, 1450) compete at local WRE event as the only R runner and win. This will give him by formula 7.4.2 = 1400 points.
(1475 points*IP = 1400/Winner’s unweighted calculated score)

It would be more fair that runner is not punished because he/she decided to compete at local races and in this case it should gain at least same 1450 points as it is his "worst race" even it is more than allowed of "maximum of 1400 points"at local races. This would also be fair towards organizers.

So today his mean points will go down. It will be interesting to see how this rule of one R runner and 10 points will influence on local "R base" runners. At first glance I would say that local "R base" will shrink and it will be hard to get decent points at local WRE races. Without many R runners we could expect some extreme cases where winner at decent local WRE race will get less points than at some exotic local WRE race.