Discussion: OUSA Rankings

With the first 2012 OUSA A-meet coming up this weekend, why not remind yourself where you stood in the rankings at the end of 2011?

Perhaps use the available information to set a goal for 2012?

Check it out! You may be pleasantly surprised.

And, since I am behind as usual mailing out the 2011 rankings patches, it is not too late to select a Virtual Patch for 2011. Select the Virtual Patches tab.

Valerie, how can we tell if we are eligible for a patch? I would opt out, but I'm not sure if I qualified for one in 2011 or not, just looking at the rankings on the OUSA website).

Sorry, Mary, I should have pointed out that you need to go to the Archive and select the December 31, 2011 rankings to see whether you earned a patch for 2011 or not.

So, yes, you earned a patch for 2011. I received your opt out email. Thank you.

They are in the recent January/February ONA, too.

Let's not forget the JWOC Rankings as we go into the Classic Champs.

I find it a bit mad that someone can run 4 races, get their average above 75 before September... and then move up a course and run crap for the rest of the 9 months leading up to JWOC and still get selected as their ranking is locked on the specific course!
As when they move up - it hampers the other juniors as not as many points are available due to the circular rankings!

Or have I made a mistake in understanding the system....
I just find the maths interesting from an analysis point of view.
What are the benefits of a circular ranking system?

Your first point may be valid, but then again, they could also run 4 races and then go play badminton for the next 9 months.

However, the fact that any given person isn't running doesn't have any impact on how many points the other people get (under the USA ranking system).

Actually, this year one can qualify for JWOC 2013 by racing April 13, 14, 15 and 20 in 2012, then sit on their sofa with a bag of Doritos for the 14+ months leading up to JWOC.

Given the already existing difficulty of fielding teams, different selection methods would be problematic: a selection race, due to travel expenses; and a shorter selection window, due to conflicts with other sports (especially track and cross country).

You can also add ~3 points to your ranking by living in the northeast.

Also, avoid sprints, especially if you want to specialize in them for WOC/JWOC.

I was also wondering that. What if someone really hasn't been up to scratch in the past. And they end up around 12th or something in the rankings, but they work hard over the Autumn, and focus better during races, and it all starts to click. Are their new Spring results still pulled down by all their previous results?
The could deservedly earn a 3rd place spot or something, but still end up around 8th on the rankings? As a junior you can see massive improvements over less than half a season even.

Again, maybe I've misunderstood the system?

(especially track and cross country).

How many Track or XC runners that ran for a college have made JWOC in the same year?

@ColmM
I'm not an expert at the ranking system but I do know that after 4 races, the system drops your worst race for every 2 extras you run. So, if you run 10 races, only your best 7 count, 12 races, the best 8, etc. That way, if you did poorly in the fall but improved a lot over the winter and ran well in the spring, than theoretically, those early, poor races would disappear, or at least some of them would.

@ c.hill -- I ran Track and XC in college and went to JWOC those same years (2002-2003) I also did a variety of other sports in high school that had a potential to conflict with the orienteering season and races that would give me point for JWOC selection (1999-2001).

When I ran at Williams College, I had a fantastic coach that was very understanding of my priorities and let me opt out of races to attend orienteering meets instead... I think other programs wouldn't have been as supportive.

@danf -- how does living in the NE add points to one's ranking? Do you mean to say that the relatively greater number of meets held in the area and greater number of competitors attending the meets leads to situations where either a) it is easier to attend more events and thus more bad races are dropped driving the score higher or b) a better score is achieved for a similar performance in the forest?

I am curious to know if you think that being in the NE is causal to higher points such as better training opportunities (with NEOC, CSU, WCOC, HVO all providing excellent events -not to play favorite, but those are the clubs that I follow most) or rather you think that the noticed ~3 point bump in the rankings is an artifact of how the rankings are calculated and whether you think the system needs to be adjusted to properly (that is to say, fairly) rank the athletes.

To be direct, should we add 3 points to the ranking score of all the juniors living outside of the NE region?

Also, to address the possibility that scores from sprint races could be lower than scores from other disciplines, remember that it is possible to opt to have your race not used in the calculation of your OUSA ranking. To do this, you need to notify the appropriate persons before your race. It would be a shame to need to do so, but as you seem to be implying it would be even worse to get lower points and thus miss out on a spot on the national team.

I find it interesting that people that are not American's are critical of our ranking system and JWOC selection procedures. What does it matter to you non-americans how we do things in this country? Are you afraid that will we beat you at World Champion races? As much as I hate to say so, not likely. The boys JWOC program has improved over the years and they do have to train to stay on top of their race to make the JWOC team. The top 6 Junior boys that will go to JWOC are well above the 75 point average and they can't sit back an relax because there are other boys right behind them waiting for a chance to move up and make the JWOC team. At the end of 2011 there are 14 young men with a point average of 75 or better so they have to keep at they game to stay on top. I am sure that the young men from other countries that are being critical of our system have a ton more young men in competition for JWOC than our 15 or so do.

On the other hand our girls program is basically non existing as we have one young women that will qualify for our female JWOC team and there is maybe one or so other females that could make the team if they work hard and have some great races this spring. . So there is no reason to be critical of a program that is not there and it not there because we just don't have young female orienteers. We know that we need to work much harder at getting females to try orienteering and hope that we can keep them interested as they become older so that we can get them to a level for world competitions.

Others might think our system is poor and could be better and we are trying to do just that but you have to work with what you have to work with.

The other factor that hampers our programs is the size of our country. How many of you critics have to pay out $500 - $800 to fly to the other side of your country or take an extra week off for each direction to drive across your country,? WE do! and most of us cannot afford to do this on a regular basis let alone at all. Add to the cost of airfare, the cost of a rental vehicle, lodging, meals and event fees and you have a very costly weekend, that most of us cannot afford to do.

So like the saying goes until you have stood in our shoes, don't judge us for what we do or how we do it.

I love maths and stats.
If the US sends a full team or no one - it makes no difference to me whatsoever.
If Andrew Childs falls apart and finishes last in the rankings (not gona happen hence why I used him as an example) it makes zero difference to me.

I'm just looking at it from a maths point of view and wonder why the system in place is being used.
I realise it ain't cheap to orienteer in the US. Its a pretty big spread out place in terms of travel.

B22 said that the process is in place so not to clash with other sports and I questioned if many/any actually run track/XC. Thats not being critical of the system - thats trying to find out if the system is taking into account something that it doesn't have to. Do the Junior Squad managers know how many juniors are invloved in track or XC? Its a question, not being critical.

Airfare from one side of the country to the other, never mind europe is not exactly free - my original query was is it sensible to send guys/girls to JWOC that have qualified so far in advance and might not be bringing recent form into consideration.


Are you afraid that will we beat you at World Champion races?

If anyone is being worried of being beaten by someone, then I would have to question if they should be at JWOC. The mental mindset is completely wrong - if you sort your own orienteering and your own mental preparation on how you intend to execute your orienteering, then there is no need to fear anyone.

I do not think we have ever had a situation in which a person who did all of his/her O-races early in the 12-month selection period, but didn't deserve to make the team by the end of the 12-months. Or took a spot that someone more deserving could have had.

I like the USOF selection system. It's transparent, objective and athletes know exactly where they stand and can plan accordingly. Of course it's not perfect, but what selection system is?

@Rosstopher

Yes, from a team selection standpoint, the rankings are flawed in that the more events one attends, the higher one's ranking score for team selection purposes is above one's average race score. I checked the magnitude of the effect using the rankings of several blue runners a while back, which is where the three point number comes from. One simple way to minimize this inflationary effect would be to drastically reduce the number of events that don't count in one's ranking score.

The current team selection process also stacks the deck against sprinters, both in terms of lower ranking scores and (for WOC) in terms of only one of the "best 3 of four" 100-point normalized scores coming from a sprint race. This is especially important for up-and-coming runners who may have good speed and motivation but lack experience on (or access to) technical terrain. That situation won't be helped by not including sprint race scores in one's ranking. A better solution might be to guarantee spots to the winner of each race in the team trials (which would require a team trials for JWOC) and/or have a separate sprint ranking system which might require (for statistical purposes) a barebones sprint sanctioning process to increase the number of ranked sprint races.

Re: juniors on track and x-c teams--I think half or more of the juniors on the JWOC team have run one or the other in high school. College is a different story and the teams are much harder to qualify for. Our local high school accpets everyone that wants to run on it's x-c and track teams and there is usually over 100 on each team. Unfortunately, the coaches are NOT tolerant about missing practices or competitions and both our boys have been threatened with being kicked off the x-c/track team if they choose to go orienteering. And unfortunately, that attitude seems to be prevelent in HS and even more so in College.

To change the subject - very nice new site, Valerie! What does the "diff" column on my personal stats page mean? It doesn't make sense to me.

Thank you, Clare.

The Diff is not working correctly at present, and may disappear completely. It should show the difference between that event's ranking and your current ranking. Works fine for Green courses but is confused by the variations of the courses (X, Y, etc.).

Clare, did you get my email about the SI-cards? :)

Ok, Diff is fixed now.