2002/2003 Oceanswims Super Series

Calculation Details Below

How it works

1. The North Sydney Ocean Swim Series 2002-2003 is open to all ocean swim participants.
2. Results are only taken from Sydney ocean swims whose results are listed on www.oceanswims.com.
3. Swimmers will compete in 5 year age groups, 20-24, 25-29, and so on (the same age group brackets that are used by NSW AUSSI). Your age group will be determined from your age at the end of 2003.
4. You will compete in the same age group all summer.
5. For each ocean swim you complete, points will be calculated based on your time compared to the rest of the field (more details on this below).
6. Your overall score for the series will be your best 5 results (this means that you don't have to do every ocean swim to be competitive.
7. Progressive results will be made available at times throughout the summer.
8. How things work might change over the summer - this is the first time that we have done this.

How are points calculated

• Determine the time of the fastest person to complete the swim. This person is awarded 100 points.
• Determine the time of the slowest person to complete the swim. This person is award 1 point. (I am thinking of changing this to the slowest 1% of swimmers, to avoid the effect of one person finishing a long time after everybody else and skewing the points.)
• The number of points awarded to everybody else is determined by calculating the ratio of their time to the fastest and slowest times, and applying this ratio to point scale of 100 down to 1.
• This really needs an example. Consider an ocean swim where the fastest swimmer took 20 minutes and the slowest swimmer took 50 minutes. Consider the following times for other swimmers:
• 25 minutes. Points = 100 - 99 * (25 - 20) / (50 - 20) = 83.5
• 35 minutes. Points = 100 - 99 * (35 - 20) / (50 - 20) = 50.5
• 45 minutes. Points = 100 - 99 * (45 - 20) / (50 - 20) = 17.5
• In general the number of points for a swim time of Time are calculated using
      100 - 99 * (Time - FastestTime) / (SlowestTime - FastestTime)
• Points will be calculated to 3 decimal points. I'm working on this!
• In practise points are calculated using times as minutes and seconds for more accuracy.
• Points are calculated using all swimmers who competed - male, female, young and old. This is to give you a score of how you compared to the rest of the field. The times of all swimmers will be slower on a difficult swim than compared with an easy swim. So if you finish in the top 20% of both an easy and hard swim you will earn a similar number of points.
• However, when determining age group results for the series, you will only be competing against people in your age group.
• This system for calculating points tries to remove any bias from the number of people competing. For example, if points were awarded based on placings, it would be easier to get points at small carnivals.

Norths AUSSI : Ocean Swim Results : 2002/2003 Oceanswims Super Series