The National Ranking System explained
by Jason Toutolmin |
12/13/2006
I have been
getting a lot of questions regarding our new National Ranking System so I
thought I should write a little bit, explaining everything in better detail. I
hope everyone understands how good the system really is and why we are using
it.
This entire system is explained in great detail on the rankings tab
(above) but I will try to put it into less wordy "rule book" type
language.
First off, we are setting a maximum number of riders per
competition group, per day, at Nationals. Instead of as many as 195(!) people
competing in a single discipline for example, the maximum number is 160 riders.
We cannot realistically push 190 plus riders through a Halfpipe in a single day without jeopardizing
something along the way. Usually we are crunched for time, meaning either
rushing people through, shortening practice times, or worst of all having to
only give riders 1 run instead of two. All of these things are not acceptable in
a National caliber event. We want to give those that are at the event every
opportunity to have a great experience. Not see how many people we can fit on
the hill each day.
Within that 160 we will figure out the cap of how many
riders in each age group to invite. Take for instance Group 4 which consists of
Youth Men, Youth Women and Junior Women. We know that last year in Boardercross we had 80 Youth Men, 35 Youth Women
and 35 Junior Women. So if we allocate 40 spots for Youth Women and 40 for
Junior Women this gives us room to take a couple more in case every series has
someone for each of these divisions. Plus a maximum of 80 Youth Men and we have
160.
So everyone that is first place in a discipline at their regional
series is automatically qualified for Nationals. Done deal, no questions asked.
If you win your series, you are invited to Nationals for that discipline. Win
all disciplines and you are invited for all disciplines. Easy.
So if
every series has a Youth Men Boardercross
rider qualified for Nationals we have 37 pre qualified riders already. Add the
returning National Champion, we now have 38. Add any ties for first place in a
series (tied riders for first place are both automatically qualified, no issues
with that anymore) add a AAT member or two,
a couple International invited riders and we are at say 45. So we now have 35
spots left to fill.
In the past we had the dreaded "wildcard". Wildcards were given based on the size of the series and ended up
all over the board. Some series were only able to send their 1st place rider
while other series had their 5 or even 6th place qualifier attending the
National Championships. This wasn't a fair system and was very hard to
understand, let alone explain to someone.
So now comes the National
Rankings. For the remaining spots we look to the National Rankings and take the
next 35 (in this example) riders in the National Ranking that are not already
qualified above. Assuming that the top 40-45 riders in the rankings are already
qualified (they probably won their series) the riders in 46-80th place should be
getting invites to Nationals.
Simple right? This system will get the
riders to Nationals that earned the invites and that are truly qualified for the
National Championships, bottom line.
So how does the point system work
for the National Ranking System? Each place in a Regional Event has a point
value, the complete chart is on the Rankings page. 1st Place is worth 1000
points, 2nd 900, 3rd 800 and so on. The NRS
is the same point scale with a bonus. You earn a bonus of 10 points for YOU and
every rider you beat. So if you get 1st place in a group of 10 riders you get
1100 points.
1000 for 1st plus 100 bonus points (10 points x 10 people in
your group).
Get it? Try this one class (here is where all that Math in
school comes in handy kids):
2nd place with 20 riders?
1090
points. 900 for 2nd place plus 190 bonus points (10 points x 18 riders that you
beat plus 10 points for you. See you get a bonus just for
participating!)
Your National Ranking is calculated using your top 3
results (in a discipline) within the last 12 months. The rankings will start
with the 2006 Nationals Results.
Nationals is worth double points, so
first at Nationals is 2000 points plus the 10 point bonus per rider.
I
hope this makes sense!
When I get some time, I will expand a bit more,
but hopefully this helps clarify things a bit. It is a good, solid and fair
system. The ultimate goal is to be able to put on a great, well run, fair
National Championship event, and part of that includes limiting the numbers a
bit and making the Championships a true Championship, by giving the Best of the
Best a place to meet up and compete to find the National Champion. With this
system, we are well on our way to getting the event to that level.
Thanks
for listening.
