Scoring (athletics)

The point evaluation should make it possible to evaluate performances in different disciplines of athletics with the same (objective) level for all participants and thus to compare them in summary . It is used in all- around competitions , in team competitions and in general when individual performances from different disciplines are to be compared.

The question arises as to which criteria should be taken into account in the measurement and which arbitrary scaling of the measurements makes sense. The diversity of the disciplines in all-around competitions leaves the question open as to whether the chosen scaling enables a fair evaluation or a distortion occurs. For all-round competitions and international competitions, the IAAF determined the scaling . It has an eventful history behind it and is still being developed today on the basis of current statistics.

At the national level, the athletics federations maintain their own point ratings. Compared to top international sport, a much broader range of services has to be covered, starting with the smallest school classes and not reaching the breadth of international competitions even at the top.

Recently, the achievements of the elderly have also come more into focus. Since the performance decreases with increasing age, the number of points achieved in the all-round matches also drops significantly. In addition, the drop in performance is e.g. B. in the running disciplines stronger than in the throw. This was not very motivating for older athletes to participate in all-around competitions and led to injustices. For this reason, age-graded correction factors for the achievements were introduced especially for seniors.

International scoring

All-around

The principles for scoring are:

The assessment is progressive within a discipline. This means that the same absolute increase in performance results in a higher increase in points with a higher output power than with a lower output power. It is assumed that an increase in performance becomes more and more difficult at a higher starting level.
The world record performances of the disciplines are rated with roughly the same number of points.

The points formulas for the disciplines (outdoor and indoor competitions) of the decathlon of men and seven struggle of women are:

for running competitions:

{\ displaystyle P = a \ cdot \ left (bM \ right) ^ {c}}

for M <b, otherwise 0 points

for jumping and throwing competitions:

{\ displaystyle P = a \ cdot \ left (Mb \ right) ^ {c}}

for M> b, otherwise 0 points

In it mean

P: number of points (rounded down to the nearest whole number)
M: achieved performance (runs in seconds, jumps in centimeters, throws in meters)
b: Minimum performance that must be exceeded in order to receive points
c: progression (value greater than 1 but not more than 2)
a: normalization factor

Electronic timing is required for races. In the case of manual timing, the measured time must be increased before calculating the points for sprint routes, by 0.24 s for distances up to 200 meters and by 0.14 s for 400 meters.

The constants a, b and c are defined as follows:

discipline	Men			Women
discipline	a	b	c	a	b	c
60 m (hall)	58.015	11.5	1.81	46.0849	13	1.81
100 m	25.4347	18th	1.81	17.857	21st	1.81
200 m	5.8425	38	1.81	4,99087	42.5	1.81
400 m	1.53775	82	1.81	1.34285	91.7	1.81
800 m	-	-	-	0.11193	254	1.88
1000 m	0.08713	305.5	1.85	-	-	-
1500 m	0.03768	480	1.85	0.02883	535	1.88
60 m hurdles (hall)	20.5173	15.5	1.92	20.0479	17th	1,835
100 m hurdles	-	-	-	9.23076	26.7	1,835
110 m hurdles	5.74352	28.5	1.92	-	-	-
Long jump	0.14354	220	1.40	0.188807	210	1.41
high jump	0.8465	75	1.42	1.84523	75	1,348
Pole vault	0.2797	100	1.35	0.44125	100	1.35
Shot put	51.39	1.5	1.05	56.0211	1.5	1.05
Discus throw	12.91	4th	1.10	12.3311	3	1.10
Javelin throw	10.14	7th	1.08	15.9803	3.8	1.04

For the world record performance points between 1135 (110 m hurdles men) and 1495 (100 m hurdles women) result.

The following two examples show the scores based on the two IAAF formulas:

Individual disciplines

In countries fighting or generally for the comparison of individual events on an international level, the IAAF points ratings set which are written only as a table plants and not in formulas. These were developed by the Bulgarian statistician Bojidar Spiriev . The best performance is rated with 1400 points.

National scoring

Germany

In the DLV area , the IAAF all-around rating applies to all-around competitions for adults, seniors and youth (from 16 years of age). Age-dependent device weights are used in the throwing disciplines, but these are not relevant for the scoring. Corresponding values a, b and c are additionally defined for special disciplines of the all-round competitions for youth and senior citizens. For the all-round competitions of the students (up to 15 years of age) and all team competitions, a separate national scoring applies, which is defined by the following formulas:

for running competitions:

{\ displaystyle P = {\ frac {\ left (D: M \ right) -a} {c}}}

for M <D / a, otherwise 0 points

for jumping and throwing competitions:

{\ displaystyle P = {\ frac {{\ sqrt [{}] {M}} - a} {c}}}

for M> a², otherwise 0 points

In it mean

P: number of points (rounded down to the nearest whole number)
M: achieved performance (runs in seconds, jumps and throws in meters)
D: distance, d. H. Length of the running route in meters
c: normalization quantity
a: Value to adjust to the minimum performance

Electronic timing is required for races. In the case of manual timing, the measured time must be increased before calculating the points for sprint courses by 0.24 s for distances up to 200 meters and by 0.14 s for 300 meters and 400 meters.

Because of the large number of disciplines, here are just a few examples of the values of the constants a and c that are relevant for the student classes:

discipline	Men		Women
discipline	a	c	a	c
50 m	3.7900	0.00690	3.6480	0.00660
75 m	4.1000	0.00664	3.9980	0.00660
100 m	4.3410	0.00676	4.0062	0.00656
Long jump	1. 15028	0.00219	1.0935	0.00208
high jump	0.84100	0.00080	0.8807	0.00068
Shot put	1.4250	0.00370	1.2790	0.00398
Punch ball 80g	2.8000	0.01100	2.0232	0.00874
Ball throw 200g	1.9360	0.01240	1.4149	0.01039

The values are set in such a way that a maximum of 1000 points result even when taking into account performance increases to be expected in the future. Hence the frequently used name "1000-point evaluation".

The national points calculation is not only used for official competitions in the area of the DLV, but z. B. also used at the national youth games.

For the throwing disciplines, the weight of the throwing device is not taken into account when calculating the points. Age-appropriate weight is to be used in competition.

It is noticeable that the formula for jumping and throwing competitions is not progressive, but rather degressive. This is to prevent individual outstanding results in these disciplines from being overrated.

The following two examples show the scores based on the two DLV formulas:

Switzerland

The SLV works with a national scoring that adopts the IAAF all-around formulas, but uses its own constants a, b and c. There is a significantly greater progression in all runs (c values from 2.1 to 2.5), no progression in the jumping competitions (c = 1) with the exception of the long jump (c = 1.1) and a degression (c = 0.9) in the throwing disciplines.

Age factors for the senior classes

A concept of age factors ("Model 2010) has been developed for evaluating the performance of seniors, which has been tested in Germany since May 1, 2009 and is expected to be used internationally from 2010. The usual point formulas and tables are used , however, beforehand the achieved performance M, possibly increased by the correction time in the case of hand-stopped sprints, is multiplied by an age factor. The age factors for runs are less than 1, so that shorter running times result. For jumps and throws, the factors are greater than 1 and lead to greater heights and widths. The age factors start from classes M35 and W35, i.e. from the age of 35. The age factors are defined in 5-year steps according to the age group. This rough grid and the associated one The jump in the factors at the 5-year limit is the main point of criticism of the model.

history

At the Olympic Games in 1912 , the men's decathlon was held for the first time. For this occasion, a linear (i.e. non-progressive) scoring with a final value of 1000 points was created for the world record of the respective discipline. In the 1920s, scoring tables were developed for the women's pentathlon. The next essential step was the creation of the "Finnish Tables" by J. Ohls in 1931, which for the first time were based on a statistical evaluation of achievements and were described mathematically by an exponential function, i.e. they were progressive. Adjustments to the performance of the athletes have taken place again and again and the progression was sometimes increased, sometimes more moderate. It was not until 1960 that the assessment of the technical disciplines was reconsidered, with the result of a degressive approach. While the degressive course of points was well suited for the comparison of individual disciplines, it gave rise to criticism from the all-rounders. In 1984, therefore, special point evaluations were developed that only apply to all-around competitions and should again be continuously progressive. They came into force in 1985 (open-air competitions) and 1986 (indoor competitions) and are still valid today with a few adjustments.

Open problems of the rating systems

The principles for a fair scoring, namely progressivity of the scoring and achievement-point equivalence, are not implemented satisfactorily with the valid evaluation regulations of the IAAF from 1985 and the Hungarian table of Spiriev.

The performance point curves are increasing, but not really progressive, because the increase in point gain for the same performance increases decreases towards a higher level of performance. This is mathematically justified for exponents c in the evaluation formulas that are less than 2.

Both the all-round table of the IAAF from 1985 and the rating for individual discipline performances by Spiriev always only show an equivalence of performances in different disciplines for a certain performance area. In the IAAF all-around table, it is the range of average performances of the world's best all-around fighters that is represented relatively well with the evaluation formulas. In the individual discipline classification Spirievs, it is the area of the absolute world-class performance of the specialists. The other performance areas show more or less large discrepancies in terms of equivalence. This is also the reason for the fact that there are many different evaluation tables that describe all other services via the points as being equivalent. The reason for this lies in the basic formula used. With the factor a it is only possible to use the formula to calculate the point value

P = (bM) high c - for running disciplines -

for a certain achievement to raise to the desired point level. All other assignments of performance and points are then made according to the specified a means

P = a * (bM) to the power of c.

The findings of statistical evaluations can hardly be implemented in the table. The principle that world record performances in all disciplines should be given roughly the same number of points is not fulfilled either. According to the 1985 IAAF table, the world records as of April 2010 are rated with a difference of 257 points. (1126 points for 12.87 s in the 110-meter hurdles to 1383 points for 74.08 m in the discus throw.) Even the world records valid in 1985 had been unjustifiably rated very differently with 222 points. According to the current all-round competition at the IAAF 1985, you have to run 11.10 s over 110 meter hurdles in order to get as many points as for 74.08 m in the discus throw. These discrepancies in the top performance area must logically also affect the performance areas of the all-rounder. There is also no justification for setting minimum benefits b, against which all other benefits are measured.

The basic formulas used are too one-dimensional to guarantee fair performance points in all performance areas.

This also leads to unsatisfactory age group scores in the WMA. These are based on the evaluation mechanism that the age class performance is first converted with a factor and then the point value for the new performance is read from the 1985 IAAF table. All errors in the IAAF basic table are therefore included in the WMA's age class assessment. With the rigid factor for each discipline and age group, only the coherence of points / performance can be achieved in a fixed, narrow performance range. The assignment of performance to points in the other performance areas then takes place independently of the findings of statistical evaluations of the real competition results. The new factors in the Rehpenning / Harvey table, which will apply internationally from May 1, 2010, do not change the many discrepancies. According to the new factors, for example, the world record in shot put for the age group M 45 = 20.77 m × factor 1.2023 = 24.97 m = 1412 points according to IAAF 1985, equated with 9.48 s over 100 meters, the one Runners in the M 45 would have to achieve the same number of points, a 400-meter runner in the M 45 would have to run 42.65 s: performance that is well above the current world record performance in the open class.

The large number of evaluation tables used internationally and nationally creates a lack of clarity and leads to completely different performance equations. For example, according to the IAAF, all-around competition 1985, 9.77 s over 100 meters are tied with 20.87 m in the shot put, according to the Hungarian table by Spiriev you have to hit the ball 23.00 m to get as many points as for 9, 77 s over 100 meters.