Lately I had some controversial discussions about how the points for the ranking are calculated. Since this also might be an issue with the new #1 and how he got there, I want to say a few words about this beforehand.
In some races points are earned much harder than in other races. You will ALWAYS have this issue in any kind of ranking that is put together from different events. Let´s take cycling for example. Last weekend we had the final stage of the Tour of Qinghai Lake in China which is classified as Pro – the second highest classification behind the World Tour. The riders who finished in the Top 10 are riders from second or third level teams around the World. Certainly, great athletes, but they would not be anywhere near the Top 10 in a European race of the same category. The winner finished the Tour of the Alps, a race in the same category, in 40th place. And you will find similar things with Tennis tournaments and any other sports where different athletes compete in different competitions for ranking points.
Now for the Aquabike.World Ranking we don´t classify races in different categories to define how much points are to gain there. Instead, the points are calculated by factors like race distance, difficulty level and the number of finishers. The points of each athlete in the race are not only calculated by his position. The time gap to the winner also is included in the calculation (read more about it in our FAQ section). I really put a lot of thoughts on how to calculate the points in the fairest possible way. You can play around with the different factors to make one result seem a little more “fair calculated” compared to another, but you will always end up getting worse results (in terms of “fair calculation”) in other results instead.
However, there is just no way to get around the fact that there will always be races where points are earned easier than in others, especially because we have a lot of races with only a very few competing athletes. There is one way though, that could make it a little more balanced. Instead of using the time gap to the fastest aquabike athlete, we could use the time gap to the best swim+bike time of the winning triathlete to calculate the points. Since we have much bigger fields in triathlon events, this would mean that the benchmark would be a bit more even. But honestly… aquabike should remain aquabike, and I don´t want to include triathlon results for the points calculation. This just wouldn´t feel right and also would bring some difficulties (especially in races where no split times are published in the results).
Another issue that was raised is that men´s and women´s results and points in a race are calculated altogether. Well, I understand the concerns here. But again, we are speaking of many events with quite little numbers of participants. Let´s take a race with 10 aquabike finishers. Only one of them is a woman, finishing in the fastest time overall – which happens more often than you might think ;). And then we have another race with 10 finishers where the only woman finishes in 10th position. Separating men´s and women´s results to calculate the points would mean, that both women get the same number of points. Of course, doing an aquabike race is about enjoying the event, the challenge, and the exercise – but it´s still a competition after all. And from a competitive point of view this wouldn´t seem right to me. And if you´re not competitive, you probably won´t care about the ranking anyway 😉
So that´s my thoughts about the points calculation and the recent debates I had. Of course, I´m curious about other opinions. So you´re welcome to let me know yours in the facebook comments or by email at mail@aquabike.world.
And the new #1 is…
But now it´s really about time to get to honour the well-deserved new #1 in Men´s Aquabike.World Ranking. A big CHAPEAU goes to out to Ireland to
Ross Hamilton
His position on top of the rankings is well deserved, but he might be wondering himself how he got there. Last weekend he was about to defend his Irish National title at the Fingal Skerries AquaBike. But this time he came in second, 19 seconds down on the winner Philip CASTLES. So how could he climb up the rankings, despite coming in second in a race that he won the year before? The reason for that is actually a quite pleasant one. Compared to the previous edition, the number of aquabike athletes in the 2023 Irish National Championships almost doubled. After we had 33 finishers in 2022 there were now 62 finishers in this year´s race. Since the number of finishers is an important factor in the points calculation, this means that there were more points to grab this year. After getting 380 points for last year´s win, Ross now got 467 points for his second place. And this little gain was enough to dethrone the previous leader in of the ranking Kris Whitelaw, who is now sitting in second position, 75 points behind Ross.
In my opinion this is well deserved and might be a bit of a redemption for missing the win in the championships that close. Congratulations Ross!
However, Ross will probably have a hard time to keep this position after the European Aquabike Championships in Belgium next month. But more about that in our upcoming race preview.