Compare rankings

[lnvzyl@gmail.com]

Thank you for providing the erg community with this program and, also, for updating it continually, Siebe. It is very useful.

[MudSweatAndYears]

Hi Siebe, are you still interested in ideas related to setting up a competition accross ages?

The following is a relatively simple idea for a transparant ranking:

Each individual in a given category (HW-M, LW-M, HW-F, or LW-F) who beats at least one other person in the same category receives a PBYA ('Pulling Below Your Age') score according to the formula:

PBYA = 100 + (Your Age) - (Age of oldest participant in your category beating you)

So:
a PBYA = 105 would mean you beat everyone except for those who are five (or more) years younger than you are,
a PBYA = 100 would mean you beat everyone who is older than you are,
a PBYA = 90 would mean you beat everyone who is more than 10 years older than you are.

Applying this idea to the 2020-2021 HW-M 2k results leads to the following PBYA top-25:

rank . . name . . . . . . . . . . . time . . age . . country . . beaten-by-age . . PBYA
01. Hamish Bond . . . . . . . . 5:43.9 . . 34 . . . NZL . . . . . . - . . . . -
02. Luke Wollenschlaeger . . 6:00.0 . . 47 . . . RSA . . . . . . 40 . . . . 107
03. Andrew Benko . . . . . . . 6:09.3 . . 53 . . . USA . . . . . . 47 . . . . 106
04. Cameron McKenzie-McHa 5:59.4 . . 40 . . . AUS . . . . . . 35 . . . . 105
05. Steve Krum . . . . . . . . . 6:46.3 . . 66 . . . USA . . . . . . 61 . . . . 105
06. Frans van Mierlo . . . . . . 7:03.2 . . 73 . . . NED . . . . . . 68 . . . . 105
07. Jan Otto Kristiansen . . . 7:45.9 . . 80 . . . NOR . . . . . . 76 . . . . 104
08. Frans Bouwmans . . . . . . 6:26.7 . . 58 . . . CAN . . . . . . 55 . . . . 103
09. Ken Gates . . . . . . . . . . 6:31.0 . . 61 . . . USA . . . . . . 58 . . . . 103
10. michael rascher . . . . . . 6:16.9 . . 55 . . . CAN . . . . . . 53 . . . . 102
11. Richard Steventon . . . . 6:55.2 . . 68 . . . GBR . . . . . . 66 . . . . 102
12. Robert Lee . . . . . . . . . 7:14.9 . . 75 . . . USA . . . . . . 73 . . . . 102
13. Brian Cort . . . . . . . . . . 8:25.7 . . 83 . . . GBR . . . . . . . 81 . . . . 102
14. Jason Marshall . . . . . . . 5:49.6 . . 35 . . . CAN . . . . . . 34 . . . . 101
15. Roger Stainforth . . . . . . 7:28.5 . . 76 . . . GBR . . . . . . 75 . . . . 101
16. Alan McClennen . . . . . . . 8:02.7 . . 81 . . . USA . . . . . . 80 . . . . 101
17. Andrew Jakubowski . . . . 8:42.8 . . 84 . . . CAN . . . . . . 83 . . . . 101
18. Hubert Bockelmann . . . . 9:22.9 . . 85 . . . GER . . . . . . 84 . . . . 101
19. John Thomson . . . . . . . . 6:13.5 . . 53 . . . NZL . . . . . . 53 . . . . 100
20. Ole Kristian Karlsen . . . . 6:20.0 . . 55 . . NOR . . . . . . 55 . . . . 100
21. Nick Cowan . . . . . . . . . . 6:45.9 . . 61 . . . GBR . . . . . . 61 . . . . 100
22. Hans Vendrig . . . . . . . . . 6:53.3 . . 66 . . . NED . . . . . . 66 . . . . 100
23. Andrew Benko . . . . . . . . 6:09.7 . . 52 . . . USA . . . . . . 53 . . . . 99
24. Nigel Colley . . . . . . . . 6:53.6 . . 65 . . . GBR . . . . . . 66 . . . . 99
25. Graham Spittle . . . . . . 7:08.1 . . 72 . . . GBR . . . . . . 73 . . . . 99

Obviously, you can create an allround ranking by adding the PBYA scores for, say, 500m, 1k, 2k and 5k.

[iain]

Great idea (i love the simplicity). I do not think that the scores are comparable however. It is liable to distortion from a single exceptional row. Also the larger the category, the greater the chance of an exceptional rower, this also applies as you go down the age ranges. Finally, I think there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that performance does not follow a straight-line. As a result, 5 years to aan 80 year old is a lot, but to a 20 year old they might actually have an advantage!

[MudSweatAndYears]

Great idea (i love the simplicity). I do not think that the scores are comparable however. It is liable to distortion from a single exceptional row. Also the larger the category, the greater the chance of an exceptional rower, this also applies as you go down the age ranges. Finally, I think there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that performance does not follow a straight-line. As a result, 5 years to aan 80 year old is a lot, but to a 20 year old they might actually have an advantage!

Sure, but it is not my intention to create an absolute level playing field across ages. I think we all agree that such a ranking is pretty much impossible to achieve. Rather I would like to create a scoring system that stimulates rowers of all ages to participate.

I look at it more from a psychology perspective. We are all aging and we all face deterioration in our absolute performance. How great would it be to have a simple and transparant score that gives you a fighting chance to achieve better performances as you age? PBYA achieves exactly that. When you are 40 years old you might struggle to beat every competitor aged 50+ and realize a PBYA of 90. However, as you keep training while aging you likely will discover that your PBYA steadily increases. At age 50 you might beat every competitor aged 58+ (yielding a PBYA of 92), and when reaching age 60, 70, etc. it is not unlikely for your PBYA to increase further.

Would such a PBYA competition not stimulate you?

[iain]

I agree that it is a good idea although very depressing for some (I was up to about 80 before declines after January!).

[jcross88]

This is an excellent tool! Thank you for your time and effort!

I've just been modifying the "log.concept2.com/rankings/2022/rower/" URI and changing the "?age=30-39" component to whatever age range I wanted, but I was limited on conveniently searching across seasons. I was about to code something up when, like any coder, I thought "maybe someone already has". Sure enough, Siebe to the rescue.

One suggestion: It would be convenient to use the data to somehow derive a "maximally competitive age range". For instance, I am 32 years old and in the 0-32 range my percentile is naturally much better than for the 32-120 range. However, for the 0-33 range my percentile is just slightly worse than for the 0-32 range.

I'd be curious what contiguous age range yields the worst percentile possible for me.

One way to do this would be to simply run all combination of age ranges (yuck) and pick the one with the worst percentile. Another way would be to expand and contract the age range on either side of your selected age, determining if the inclusion of the new age range includes more names above or below you in the ranking. However, it could be possible, for instance, that 38 year old rowers add more rankings below me than above me, and yet somehow 39 year old rowers add more above me than below me, enough even to cancel out the effect of the 38 year old rowers.

I've also noticed this changes from event to event. It seems like young hot-shots tend to fixate on 2k distance and below, but you get some increasingly impressive times for 5k+ in the 35+ years old crowd.

[johnlvs2run]

The ranked workouts page appears to be empty today.
It's a great web site that I refer to quite often, so I hope it's still working.

[sjors]

Hi all,

I was quite involved in other software-development projects, and my personal fitness was also in issue....
But now I'm back into rowing and may have some extra time to spend on new ideas. I will keep you posted.
Btw, the issue where the search-engine after a few days stopped working was not resolved until last week.

Best regards, Siebe

[sjors]

Hi Siebe, are you still interested in ideas related to setting up a competition accross ages?

The following is a relatively simple idea for a transparant ranking:

Each individual in a given category (HW-M, LW-M, HW-F, or LW-F) who beats at least one other person in the same category receives a PBYA ('Pulling Below Your Age') score according to the formula:

PBYA = 100 + (Your Age) - (Age of oldest participant in your category beating you)

So:
a PBYA = 105 would mean you beat everyone except for those who are five (or more) years younger than you are,
a PBYA = 100 would mean you beat everyone who is older than you are,
a PBYA = 90 would mean you beat everyone who is more than 10 years older than you are.

Applying this idea to the 2020-2021 HW-M 2k results leads to the following PBYA top-25:

rank . . name . . . . . . . . . . . time . . age . . country . . beaten-by-age . . PBYA
01. Hamish Bond . . . . . . . . 5:43.9 . . 34 . . . NZL . . . . . . - . . . . -
02. Luke Wollenschlaeger . . 6:00.0 . . 47 . . . RSA . . . . . . 40 . . . . 107
03. Andrew Benko . . . . . . . 6:09.3 . . 53 . . . USA . . . . . . 47 . . . . 106
04. Cameron McKenzie-McHa 5:59.4 . . 40 . . . AUS . . . . . . 35 . . . . 105
05. Steve Krum . . . . . . . . . 6:46.3 . . 66 . . . USA . . . . . . 61 . . . . 105
06. Frans van Mierlo . . . . . . 7:03.2 . . 73 . . . NED . . . . . . 68 . . . . 105
07. Jan Otto Kristiansen . . . 7:45.9 . . 80 . . . NOR . . . . . . 76 . . . . 104
08. Frans Bouwmans . . . . . . 6:26.7 . . 58 . . . CAN . . . . . . 55 . . . . 103
09. Ken Gates . . . . . . . . . . 6:31.0 . . 61 . . . USA . . . . . . 58 . . . . 103
10. michael rascher . . . . . . 6:16.9 . . 55 . . . CAN . . . . . . 53 . . . . 102
11. Richard Steventon . . . . 6:55.2 . . 68 . . . GBR . . . . . . 66 . . . . 102
12. Robert Lee . . . . . . . . . 7:14.9 . . 75 . . . USA . . . . . . 73 . . . . 102
13. Brian Cort . . . . . . . . . . 8:25.7 . . 83 . . . GBR . . . . . . . 81 . . . . 102
14. Jason Marshall . . . . . . . 5:49.6 . . 35 . . . CAN . . . . . . 34 . . . . 101
15. Roger Stainforth . . . . . . 7:28.5 . . 76 . . . GBR . . . . . . 75 . . . . 101
16. Alan McClennen . . . . . . . 8:02.7 . . 81 . . . USA . . . . . . 80 . . . . 101
17. Andrew Jakubowski . . . . 8:42.8 . . 84 . . . CAN . . . . . . 83 . . . . 101
18. Hubert Bockelmann . . . . 9:22.9 . . 85 . . . GER . . . . . . 84 . . . . 101
19. John Thomson . . . . . . . . 6:13.5 . . 53 . . . NZL . . . . . . 53 . . . . 100
20. Ole Kristian Karlsen . . . . 6:20.0 . . 55 . . NOR . . . . . . 55 . . . . 100
21. Nick Cowan . . . . . . . . . . 6:45.9 . . 61 . . . GBR . . . . . . 61 . . . . 100
22. Hans Vendrig . . . . . . . . . 6:53.3 . . 66 . . . NED . . . . . . 66 . . . . 100
23. Andrew Benko . . . . . . . . 6:09.7 . . 52 . . . USA . . . . . . 53 . . . . 99
24. Nigel Colley . . . . . . . . 6:53.6 . . 65 . . . GBR . . . . . . 66 . . . . 99
25. Graham Spittle . . . . . . 7:08.1 . . 72 . . . GBR . . . . . . 73 . . . . 99

Obviously, you can create an allround ranking by adding the PBYA scores for, say, 500m, 1k, 2k and 5k.

Interesting idea.
It seems quite easy to do that.
Only issue, is that at every new ranking, a lot of rankings have to be recalculated, or am I missing something?

Regards Siebe

[sjors]

Thank you for providing the erg community with this program and, also, for updating it continually, Siebe. It is very useful.

Thanks, I'm still impressed by the speed of the search-engine (https://solr.apache.org/) the website uses.

[sjors]

Finally, I think there is sufficient evidence to demonstrate that performance does not follow a straight-line.

I don't know...after a lot of reading studies and comparing a lot of data I can imagine, that in the end the AVERAGE decline in performance maybe simple just something like 1%(in wattage) a year from lets say 35 years old.
This believe/hope would make comparing sport-results very easy

[MudSweatAndYears]

Only issue, is that at every new ranking, a lot of rankings have to be recalculated, or am I missing something?

Yes. Ideally, with every new result entered, you would have to recompute the ranking. If this causes problems, the results upload and ranking update frequency could be reduced to - say - once a week, at the expense of rendering the competition less dynamic.

[Titi]

As I'm a rather competitive person, I was interested how I am doing compared to others.
And so I have been ranking some of my workouts the past years on the rankings of concept2.
If you want to now how you are doing compared to others in previous years, you can search year by year and remember the scores over the years.
Or if I wanted to know what are the records for my country
It made me wonder why not make that comparing easier.
So the past week I have set up a website that gathers the rankings of concept2 and put that in an easy to use comparing site.
So today I put that site live: https://www.rankedworkouts.com

If you have any questions, remarks or bugs, just let me know. (It's not working on small divisies properly)
One notice: If pace for a workout is not feasible considering all kinds of logic, the pace-score will drop to the bottom.

So you collected the data from concept 2,is it real enough?
No offense~I just need to be sure~