How ranking points are calculated
A plain guide to Competition Rule S. The rule itself is in the Rules of Orienteering.
The scale
The average orienteer on an average day scores 1,000. About two runners in three score between 800 and 1,200. A score is fixed once it's published.
Your current score
The mean of every score you've had in the last 12 months, put on the day's scale: every runner's mean is moved by the same rule so that, together, they average 1,000 with a spread of 200. It isn't your ranking, but it's what the scheme expects of you at your next race. Your results page shows it beside every race as "Expected".
A course's points
No course has a fixed value. The runners who turn up set it. Take everyone on the course who already has a current score, then:
- Find the mean and the spread of their current scores.
- Find the mean and the spread of their times.
- The mean time earns the mean score. A time one spread faster earns one spread of points more, and so on in a straight line.
So a fast time against a strong field earns more than the same time against a weak one, and every course's results page draws that line with the runners who set it.
Who's left out of the sum
- A bad day or a great one. The line is drawn twice. The first time it goes through everyone. Anyone it puts more than 100 points from their current score is dropped, and it's drawn once more through the rest. That second line gives everyone their points, the dropped runners included. It isn't drawn a third time, so now and then a runner ends up a little over 100 away and in the sum, or a little under and out of it.
- Nobody to compare with. Runners with no score in the last 12 months get points from the line but don't help draw it.
- Not a member, or no membership number at entry. No points, and no part in the sum.
A course needs at least eight runners in the sum, or nobody on it gets points.
When an event lists two courses of the same length, climb and number of controls, such as a big class split over "4A" and "4B", they are one course for all of this, with one line between them.
Your ranking
Your best six scores of the last 12 months, added up. A score drops off a year after its race, which is why a total can fall on a weekend you didn't run. Your results page says which six count, when each one goes, and the score you'd need to beat to raise the total.
Which races count
Major, National and Regional events, for members aged 16 or over in the year. Relays, score events and mass starts don't count.