Fair team results a...
 

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Fair team results and female participation

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I am trying to work out a roughly fair way to score a weekend team competition made up of several different events and where the teams can be 3, 4 or 5 people. The events will be a mix of cycling, fitness style obstacle course, fun on a ski slope in inflatable donuts, so nothing too specialist or demanding but favouring an all round fit person rather than a specialist. I am thinking of simply using the average result for the whole team as the recorded result for each event. (Sum of 3 peoples time divided by 3, 4 people divided by 4 and 5 people by 5)

A) This seems the simplest way but does this seem fair?
B) Other suggestions?

We want to encourage female participation but do not want to run a separate female only event. Any ideas on this? I was thinking that as this is meant to be fun and isn’t part of some important race series that we could just say that each team must include one female but I am not sure if this will stop lots of people being able to participate if they don’t have a willing partner.

C) What have you seen work elsewhere?
D) What do you think might work?


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:35 pm
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Popcorn anyone?


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:38 pm
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All team members should be classified as They in the rulebook, thats WCA exonerated and is a lot of extra work avoided.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:41 pm
scotroutes reacted
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Awkward to work out but fair - calculate times as the delta from fastest time for their sex, and use that instead of actual time elapsed


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:42 pm
TedC reacted
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@scotroutes what flavours are on offer?


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:52 pm
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Base it on the sum-time of the last three finishers in the team, so regardless of how fast the first two in a 5 person team are, the last three are the most important. Team size min 3, max 5
How about stating that it is a 'mixed' team required. Any team presenting as all male would not be in keeping with the spirit of creating an inclusive and fair environment for all


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:54 pm
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Use a points system e.g. fastest person gets 50 points, next person 45 and so on.

Rather than trying to do an overall time - this stops someone who is really strong at one very specific thing getting an insurmountable lead by winning the cycling by minutes, and then a subsequent activity where everyone will naturally be quite grouped together becoming meaningless. I imagine the differnce in time between the best and worse donut-down-a-ski-slope will be small?

Maybe have a bigger gap between the points for podium positions, but everyone gets points so even the person finishing last is feeling like they are contributing to the team score.

I guess then divide by number of players.

This makes it easier to have a separate womens leaderboard which then directly adds to the mixed team.

If there are drastically fewer women, then have the womens points curve tail off more dramatically.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:54 pm
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Just advertise it as a lot of fun and not a competition.
Everyone's a winner.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:57 pm
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...and I really want to go down a ski slope in an inflatable doughnut now!


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 5:58 pm
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I was going to average the times for each event and give that event a score. This will stop someone winning the cycling by minutes and then no-one being able to catch up in all other events.

Mixed teams works, as does only the last 3 scores count.

[i]Just advertise it as a lot of fun and not a competition.[i/] - It is a fun competition with spot prizes throughout, possibly including a tray of real donuts for the most spectacular descent in and inflatable donut


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 6:06 pm
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Awkward to work out but fair – calculate times as the delta from fastest time for their sex, and use that instead of actual time elapsed

This, or just rank by sex so 1st place gets 50 points, 2nd gets .... etc. Which if there's an imbalance in the number of men Vs women the actively rewards the underrepresented group for turning up.

Or figure out events that reward skill over fitness. e.g. anything off the Cube, archery (with a very basic bow not an 80lb monster), "air rifle scrabble" (print letters onto a sheet of A1, in the same frequency they are in scrabble, shoot at it from a range that makes it basically impossible to be that accurate anyway, 30ft is enough), build a bottle rocket for range, towers made from elastic bands and garden canes.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 6:10 pm
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I am planning on taking over the Southampton sports Centre for the event so if you know the facilities they have, I will just blag those. Let me know if there is anything that takes your fancy.

Once I have worked out what I want to do, I will simply take it to them and persuade them to let me do it. Easy.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 6:38 pm
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…and I really want to go down a ski slope in an inflatable doughnut now!

With WCA in charge? Are you sure?


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 6:44 pm
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I doing think the donuts race needs to be just downhill. Dragged up by the ski lift and lead blowers to steer a slalom perhaps.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 6:57 pm
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I was going to average the times for each event and give that event a score. This will stop someone winning the cycling by minutes and then no-one being able to catch up in all other events.

I'd do this. Try not to overthink things, it would be impossible to be totally fair with a range of size and mixed sex teams.


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 7:38 pm
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what flavours are on offer?

Mix of sweet and salty


 
Posted : 22/03/2023 7:45 pm

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