Unofficial UK Slalom BBS

Just an idea

We have first race of the season on Saturday

C1W has 4 paddlers. So not quorat. If there was one paddle up that would make 5 (but still not quorat)

Wouldn’t it help everyone if that one paddle up did make it quorat

I know. A can of worms

What would be more interesting to consider is the effect of this potential situation on the ranking points secured post race.

The four C1W paddlers who have already entered currently will, if the situation does not change, get their ranking points allocated to them based on how their performance relates to that of the K1M paddlers once a time adjustment allowance factor has been applied.

The ability and therefore potential performance of these four C1W paddlers will not be affected in any way if another paddler should enter the race or not.

However if a 5th paddler did enter the race then the ranking points for the now five entrants would be 1000, 800, 600, 400 & 200 respectively.

I for one suspect that these may be greater even for the paddler who finishes 5th in a quorate race than they would be for possibly all 5 paddlers in a none quorate race which cannot be an acceptable or suitable system to operate with going forward.

Should all run times of the various different classes be compared to the run times of the K1M's class, once a time adjustment allowance factor has been applied for each, regardless of if the other class is quorate or not?

Just an idea to make things equal for all and interested to hear all alternative points of view but please don't use the 'Sexist' card because the suggestion equally applies to C1M and C2's.

This already applies to C2s

I could see this working at div 1 and prem (in fact you could just ditch the comparison factor (as long as promotion threshold was adjusted) as every paddler would be in same boat and for C1W it probably would be fairer.

However, at lower divisions I have seen the odd competition (although it is pretty rare) where K1W has been quorate but not K1M so we might need to take this into account and have some backup method otherwise it could nullify the whole competition.

Best situation would be to award points based on comparison with largest class for all other classes.
Modifiers should be retained, but either reviewed annually, or by on the fly normalisation of the results for all other classes assuming the winner of each deserves top points. The latter would make it impossible for paddlers to calculate required positions for promotion ahead of or during a race because no parent or coach can do it in their head, and it cannot be done until the results are in, but it would probably be more fair.

There should still be a quoracy requirement, if no classes have 5 paddlers, the race should not be worth full points, even if the 4 best paddlers in division happen to be present.

Also if an individual class has less than 5 paddlers, the current modifiers may be a better indication than normalisation assuming that the class winner is equivalent standard to largest class winner.

I don't think K1W and C1W should as a general rule be compared to mens classes.

If you did a statistical analysis of the results over the last 5 years, you would find that the variance in women classes v mens classes depends on the length and difficulty of the course.

I think the current arrangement where this only applies when classes are inquorate is the best alternative option we have to allocate points.

One other way to do if if there were 4 entries, is to notionally add a 5th paddler and then assume they finished half way up. So points could be allocated as 1000,800,400 and 200. This at least differentiates between the different placings of the competitors. Last year we have an inquorate event where the 3 girls all got the maximum points when they were compared to the K1 men. However tinkering with the points all gets way too complicated for paddlers, parents and organisers.

So long as there are enough quorate events, the best paddlers will get promoted. An individual inquorate race still provides a good racing opportunity and good experience and points and promotion are not an exact science.

Best to leave the C1 at home this weekend and concentrate on K1 I guess

Not necessarily. Looking at some C1W results they can often do better against the men than when their event is only just quorate; especially true if the competition for the event is close

CeeBee wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 17, 2020 4:18 pm

I don't think K1W and C1W should as a general rule be compared to mens classes.

If you did a statistical analysis of the results over the last 5 years, you would find that the variance in women classes v mens classes depends on the length and difficulty of the course.

This is why I think some kind of on the day modifier based on results would be better than the current fixed modifiers. I realised shortly after I posted that 'normalisng' has a specific mathematical meaning and isn't what I wanted to do (never been good at stats!).
Basically determine the modifier based on how much the winner of each class is behind, or ahead, of the winner of the biggest class. Then assuming there are enough entrants in each class that the winner is truly representative of the variance due to course differences, the entire class will get points that have accounted for that.
The only upset then is that if a class is only represented by a few paddlers from the very bottom of the ability range, the best of a weak bunch would be used and everyone would get more points than they really should. I was wondering about changing quoracy to a percentage of ranked competitors, but that could potentially make things worse by requiring fewer than 5 in some classes/divisions, and potentially making all div 3 events inquorate because by design only a small percentage of ranked paddlers in any class attend any one div 3 event.... So we need a better idea than that!

What we introduced for the C2 classe a couple of seasons ago seems to work fine.

All entrants are compared to the corresponding K1 Men's time after a time adjustment % allowance has been applied.

If you are fast enough (comparatively) you get high ranking points but if you are not then you don't.

This is regardless of who else or how many other people enter the race.

Sounds and feels perfectly fare to me.

Steve

I am considering to propose at the next ACM that Paddle Up results get calculated as if they are racing in the Class they have entered.
So if there are 60 entries, Plus 1 PU and the PU finishes 30th. The Paddle Up will get 30th place points and the home division paddler that finishes 30th would get 31st. So everyone above the PU would get more points and below less.
The result sheet would have 61 finishers.

So then at a race with 4 entries if there was 1 PU entry the rase would become quorate.
At a Div2/3 event with say 3 Div2 entries and 2 Div3 entries the classes could get combined to make a quorate event.

I am not going to go into all the details now as I do not think anything can be done until the ACM.

Mike Mitchell wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 18, 2020 8:36 pm

I am considering to propose at the next ACM that Paddle Up results get calculated as if they are racing in the Class they have entered.
So if there are 60 entries, Plus 1 PU and the PU finishes 30th. The Paddle Up will get 30th place points and the home division paddler that finishes 30th would get 31st. So everyone above the PU would get more points and below less.
The result sheet would have 61 finishers.

So then at a race with 4 entries if there was 1 PU entry the rase would become quorate.
At a Div2/3 event with say 3 Div2 entries and 2 Div3 entries the classes could get combined to make a quorate event.

I am not going to go into all the details now as I do not think anything can be done until the ACM.

Just think about races where ranking paddlers finish above PU, for example 40 ranking & 20 PU, the last Ranking should get lowest points, in the proposal they would get 40th placed out of 60 so approx 300 points rather than the 25 if lasted placed (based on div1 points) - thats just wrong!

For me just get rid of Paddle up & go back to the old way - no points unless you beat 5%0 of the field rather than keep messing with it

"I am considering to propose at the next ACM that Paddle Up results get calculated as if they are racing in the Class they have entered."

Good luck with that, divisional paddlers will be up in arms. Many were when they thought that's what PU meant.