The new BOF Ranking scheme is based upon the scoring system of awarding 1000 points for the mean time on a course, and 200 points for each standard deviation time (a measure of spread) faster than the mean. The performances of ranked runners in each class at an event are used to to standardise the scores. This ensures that points awarded to a runner are simply dependent on the quality of the run, and not on who turns up.

1. The new scheme comes into operation on 1st January 2000.
2. Ranking events will be all UK events of Badge Event Status or above where the Organiser states on the ER1 form that the event will be a ranking event. Certain other events such as UK Cup races will also be eligible to be ranking events. The ranking status of an event will be indicated in the BOF fixture list.
3. National Events and above attract a weighting of 1.05 during the first year (2000) only.
4. The organiser of a ranking event must submit the results in electronic form in the BOF file format as soon as possible after the event, and no later than 14 days after the event.
5. If a ranking event fails to meet this condition, the organising club will not be permitted to hold another ranking event until they can guarantee to meet the condition.
6. The key to the ranking lists will be BOF number.
7. Most of the results software packages in common use in the UK can already produce results in the required format, including Terry Smith's Badge program, SportIdent (with Michael Napier's conversion program), Michael Napier's own software, Emit and Judith Powell's Safestart system..
8. There is a compliance testing utility on the BOF Web site that will check the format of a results file before it is submitted.
9. The total of a runner's best six scores over the past 12 months give a runner's current ranking. Over the first 6 months of operation, the ranking lists will show the total of a runner's best N scores where N increases from 1 to 6 over the 6 months.
10. The system is being started by using base ranking scores calculated from the results of JK99 and BOC99. The Elite Short race results have been discarded for this.
11. Points are not transferable between classes.
12. Short classes (and M18B) are ranked, although their ranking lists are separate from those for the long courses.
13. IOF Ranking points scored by British runners in World Cup Finals and World Championship qualification and final races are converted to BOF ranking points for inclusion in the BOF rankings. The conversion is achieved by comparing the points scored under the IOF and BOF ranking schemes at a British World Ranking event.
14. A special calculation is used for classes which are too small for a standard deviation to be reliably measured. The standard deviation is estimated as 16% of the mean time for the class.

For classes with 20 or more ranked runners within the winner's time plus 75%,

Runner's Points =     Mean Score for Ranked Runners +
                               Standard Deviation of Mean Scores of Ranked Runners x
                               (Mean Time of Ranked Runners - Runner's Time) /
                               Standard Deviation Time of Ranked Runner

The base ranking used the formula

Runners Points = 1000 + (Mean Time - Runner's Time) x 200/Standard Deviation Time

For classes with 10 or fewer ranked runners within the winner's time plus 75%,

Runner's Points =    Mean Score for Ranked Runners +
                              [200 - 0.20(Mean Score for Ranked Runners -1000)] x
                              (Mean Time of Ranked Runners - Runner's Time)/
                              (0.20 x Mean Time of Ranked Runners)

The formula simplifies to

Runner's Score = 2000 - Runner's Time x (2000 - Mean Score for Ranked Runners)/Mean Time of Ranked Runners

If there are no ranked runners within the winner's time plus 75% then the class is not ranked at that event

The base ranking used the formula Runners Points = 1000 + (Mean Time - Runner's Time) x 200/(0.16 x Mean Time)

and if only one person finished within twice the winner's time they scored 1250.

For classes with between 10 and 20 ranked runners within the winner's time plus 75%, a weighted mean of the scores given by the two above formulae is used.

A weighted calculation is used for times between 50% and 100% of the winner's time when calculating mean and standard deviation, the weighting going from 1 to 0 over that range.

The conversion between IOF and BOF Ranking points is calculated as follows:

At a British World Ranking event,if Runner X scores Xb points in the BOF scheme and Xi points in the IOF scheme, and Runner Y scores Yb points in the BOF scheme and Yi points in the IOF scheme then

BOF points = IOF Points x (Xb-Yb)/(Xi-Yi) + (XiYb-XbYi)/(Xi-Yi).

Last updated 16 October 2003