Rolling Rankings

[HaRVey]

Question:
Does the current ongoing ranking system fit the purpose for Premier?

My interpretation is:
No. I am currently ranked 1st in the 2012 K1M ranking. I will be ranked as the UK No.1 for all the major internationals, including Euros, World Cups, and the Olympics, but I'm not on the GBR Team, in fact I didn't even make GBR Senior Selection for 2012 (Top 11 paddlers) but I have been ranked No.1 since the Tully races. I could be hopping up and down infront of the BBC offering to give them my expert opinion, I am not suggesting I should be on the Team, the opposite, I am suggesting that we could perhaps display the ongoing rankings in a different way.

Suggestion:
A 1 year Rolling Ranking system.

How does it work:
In 2011 there were 9 prem races, that could be used to count towards your ranking at the end of 2011.
In 2012, after Prem race 1, the ranking of competitors would be calculated from 2011 (Prem races 2-9) and 2012 (Prem Race 1).
In 2012, after Prem race 2, the ranking of competitors would be calculated from 2011 (Prem races 3-9) and 2012 (Prem races 1-2). etc
[i.e. simply that a for each new race in 2012, we remove the next earliest race from the previous season]

After 9 races in 2012, the season is finished. Just as in the current ranking system, only the results from 2012 can count, and hence all national end of season Ranking awards can still be awarded, exactly as they are at the moment.

What does this look like:
Sadly I can not upload an excel spreadsheet, to this chatter feed, but I have calculated what the rankings would have been after Prem races, 1, then 2, then 3, etc, for this season. The obvious headlines are, I am ranked around 8th or 9th (not 1st), and all the obvious people are ahead of me. Campbell, is at the top of the rankings for the majority of the time, having 5 wins that count in the last 1 year (9race) period.
Looking further down the list, Injured members of Prem, who have not been able to paddle, this year, have a ranking based off the races at the end of last season, they appear in roughly the place you would expect for their ability before injury, they are not simply missing from the ranking lists.
New promotee's move up the list in a similar manner to how they would normally, as they get points from attending more races.
Possible Demotee's for the season, this is done at the end of the season, and so there is no change to how this is done.

Overall benefit:
The Ranking represents the ability of the paddlers in the division, paddlers who complete 5 races or more year on year, are always in the ranking, and will normally appear in the ranking very close to their relative ability.
Knock on benefit: The sport can easily sell itself to the media as non sport specific individuals can look at the ranking and correctly determine the ability of individuals in the sport. This helps with attaining sponsorship for individuals (Galasport currently offer sponsorship to the top 3 athletes from any national ranking system), ranking paddlers on an ongoing basis is actually a correct reflection, this is used at Junior Champs/Senior Champs/Panceltics/Interclubs.

Should anyone wish to see these spread sheets and what the rankings look like, I shall be happy to send the spread sheet as an email to you. my email: bob_the_builder_vasey@hotmail.com

If I get a some interest in this, (Agree/Disagree) I will ask Nick Penfold if he would be prepared to host this spreadsheet, or maintain a rolling ranking, for people to compare. I don't think it needs a rule change to display this, and once the rolling list is set up, it is exactly the same amount of work to update as the current online ranking system.
There may be a required rule change if this is to be implemented by the Premier Ranking List compilers long term, hence I am bringing it up now, so people can discuss before ACM proposals are put forward (but as I say there is no effect on the end of season ranking) only the ongoing interpretation.
Robin

[Dee]

The online rankings are not official and are put up by Nick out of the kindness of his heart; the only official rankings are those prepared by the ranking compilers at the end of the year.

So there is nothing to stop someone creating rolling rankings on a regular basis and asking Nick if he is prepared to host them. No rule changes required as they will be no more official than the current method.

Whether it is worth doing this, rather depends on how paddlers are using the rankings and what they are using them for. If you are using them because you are at the bottom end and want to check that you are avoiding demotion then the current system might be more useful

[djberriman]

Not sure how good an idea it is but it should be possible if and when the new ranking database I am working on ever comes to be adopted.

It would simply be a matter of altering the ranking algoritm or having a secondary one. That's one of the advantages of a database you can easily extract whatever results you wish with little effort.

For those who are interested you can look at the purely EXPERIMENTAL ranking database here, this is just my own unathorised work with help and input from Nick, Mark Shaw and David Spencer. It is even LESS official than Nicks rankings and is currently still under development to see what is possible.

www.dcl.co.uk/slalom

Strictly utterly unofficial and for demonstration purposes only.

Duncan

[Nick Penfold]

I can see that the early season rankings are not that meaningful, but I'm not sure that merging them with those from a past season will be much more meaningful. And boy, if you need to work to avoid the drop that one-off good one late last year could blind you to your fate until it's too late.

[PeteWillett]

From a premier paddler point of view I think this is a good idea. It's more likely to show who is the best in the country at any point throughout the season instead of just at the end and gives me mid table paddler a better idea too. This is similar to Tennis, Golf, Canoe slalom world rankings although all those systems are based over two years or more. A one  year rolling rankings still has the same end result as in previous seasons but avoids  complicated answers when my friends or colleagues at work ask me where I'm ranked and i say 18th after the 1st race, 16th after 5 races,  24th after 7 races and 34th after 9 races. Normal reply from friends so your getting worse? (which maybe true long term, season on season). Answer No, just other people have done more races throughout the season and I did all of the first five. Which normally leaves them confused so most of the time I just tell where I was ranked at the end of the last season.

[campbell]

I agree, a rolling ranking system would be very good.

It would then be a true ranking system, better reflecting standing/ability at any point in the year.

We would still have the ranking after the last race of the season to decide bib numbers, and award the National Champion trophies, as we normally do.

I can't see any negatives with the proposal.

[alldaypaddler]

the only issue i can think of is for newcomers - they will be ranked near the bottom until they've done 5 races, which may not show how good they are compared to others.

perhaps they should be given 5 results relevant to what they've got already, so for example if they've done one race and got 400 points, they'll have 5x400=2000 points. then if they do two races of say, 400 and 600 they'll have 400+600+3xaverage= 400+600+4x500=3000 points. that would also happen to people who didn't do 5 races the previous year?

[Nick Penfold]

perhaps they should be given 5 results relevant to what they've got already, so for example if they've done one race and got 400 points, they'll have 5x400=2000 points. then if they do two races of say, 400 and 600 they'll have 400+600+3xaverage= 400+600+4x500=3000 points. that would also happen to people who didn't do 5 races the previous year?

Not on my watch.

[Veronica]

quote]perhaps they should be given 5 results relevant to what they've got already, so for example if they've done one race and got 400 points, they'll have 5x400=2000 points. then if they do two races of say, 400 and 600 they'll have 400+600+3xaverage= 400+600+4x500=3000 points. that would also happen to people who didn't do 5 races the previous year?[/quote]

Not on my watch.[/quote]

Sounds very confusing! Has the arithmetic not gone wonky!

[HaRVey]

Agreed, the short answer is: NO.

The ranking system is a reflection of the number of races you have been to, as well as how well you race at those races. Using the above calculated notion, if you win one race, you don't race again and guarantee a 5000 point score and win the end of season rankings, that would be ridiculous.

The issue of new promotee's is a 'non issue', currently new promotees, get promoted from div1 during the season, they are then entering into a ranking against paddlers who have a number of results already (this year due to the difficulty of timetabling the calendar and cancellation of races, there were 5 prem races before there were 3 div 1's, so in this instance the new promotee's are already 5 races behind, more than that, they can only get 4 results this season, so their end of season ranking is not a reflection of their results, but a reflection of how their 4 or less results compared to paddlers in prem who have had all seasons results, you haven't proposed to change this (don't by the way).

Further more, With the rolling ranking system new promotees who get promoted before Septmeber this year (i.e. have 4 prem race results), will have a ranking which is a fair representation of their ability immediately following the 1st prem race in 2013, as apposed to as it is at the moment, when they will only be able to see their appropriate(reflective) ranking at the end of 2013.

In reality those people in Premier division will all have had the conversation similar to that suggested above by Pete Willett, as the Premier rankings normally take 7 or 8 races to get even close to resembling the final (and true) ranking, on ability, thus for 1 month, October, the rankings are useful, and this year with two prem races in one weekend in Nov, they may not ever be close to a reflection of the ability.

The last point I'd like to highlight, as I am into celebrating success...

Campbell has won 9 out of 10 UK Premier Division races he has entered since the start of 2011 (there have been 14 races in that period).
He is undefeated in 2012 (though some people have made him have to really work for it), however, for this very impressive achievement, we reward him by saying he is only good enough to be 4th in the Current K1Mens rankings, so for the majority of the season, including the Euro's, World Cups, and Olympics he isn't recognised as being the best in our UK Premier Division. (He was the highest GBR K1M at the Euros last weekend) if our UK Rankings could reflect this a bit more consistently would that be a bad thing?
Further more Campbell attends more races than average for paddlers on the GBR Team, and as such has a consistent number of results for this to be a good reflection of his commitment to supporting the UK Premier Race system (this i believe should also be commended), other GBR Team paddlers are a lot less supportive of our National Race System, some of them don't have 5 races even using my Rolling Ranking Suggestion, worse still, some struggle to have attended 5 races since the start of 2011, (happily, using this rolling ranking they are therefore not at the top of the UK Premier Rankings (if you added in some complex factor for races they haven't done they perhaps would be... this would make a complete mockery of this process an reduce the number of paddlers entering races), but that is negative, and I want to finish on a positive... so...

How many UK Premier Races has Fiona Pennie won since the start of 2011?
Everyone she has entered!!!! Wow. Where is she currently ranked? 8th K1W... hardly a fair reflection of ability.
To clarify, Fiona has not been beaten in a UK Premier Race since the start of 2011, that's 8 races straight unbeaten. She had the highest result in the World Champs in 2011, and has just won a Bronze at the European Champs, last weekend in Augsburg. (Congrats Fiona .) The rolling ranking reflects this imperious record, having her at No.1, not 8th.

This is only a further example to suggest the Rolling ranking is a much truer reflection of the paddlers in our sports performance ability (and commitment to do 5 races through a 9 race period), and thus is a better comparison for all paddlers to use on their ability, being a meaningful representation all year round.

I hope Nick will have the Rolling Rankings posted soon, so people can reflect on them themselves, but as before if paddlers in the sport deem them to be a negative the current ranking system can continue to be used.
(Thank you, Nick )

[Veronica]

the only issue i can think of is for newcomers - they will be ranked near the bottom until they've done 5 races, which may not show how good they are compared to others.

perhaps they should be given 5 results relevant to what they've got already, so for example if they've done one race and got 400 points, they'll have 5x400=2000 points. then if they do two races of say, 400 and 600 they'll have 400+600+3xaverage= 400+600+4x500=3000 points. that would also happen to people who didn't do 5 races the previous year?

Surely if rankings are based on 5 results this should be 400+600+3x500=2500 points not 3000.

[Veronica]

For those who are interested you can look at the purely EXPERIMENTAL ranking database here, this is just my own unathorised work with help and input from Nick, Mark Shaw and David Spencer. It is even LESS official than Nicks rankings and is currently still under development to see what is possible.

http://www.dcl.co.uk/slalom

Strictly utterly unofficial and for demonstration purposes only.

Duncan

Looks really useful. Great to be able to click and see where points came form, times etc.

[jke]

One hazard of having unofficial results is incorrect names. My clubmate Andrew Lyall has had his name spelt wrong ever since the Tryweryn results. So incorrect on the P/1 Veteran Ranking thread and now on Duncan's database also.

[Veronica]

Results should be collated by bib number not name. Therefore unless just promoted or div 4 this should not be a problem.

[Nick Penfold]

One hazard of having unofficial results is incorrect names.

Shouldn't bother looking at them, John, if you're so picky. Incorrect names do get into the ranking lists, and I put them right if I'm asked.