Walt wrote:
> Ken,
> David Honea is not the only one that goes "ballistic" when you publish
> these "age-graded" comparisons. In my opinion, you do a disservice to
masters
> athletes when you do this, since most "serious" track fans laugh at the
> numbers.
I am as strong a proponent of age grading as anyone - I designed a program
that age grades everyone in the USATF/Connecticut grand prix series. But
Walt is right that it has NO place in elite track and field, even for
masters. It is the nature of the bell curve that represents race
performances that the fastest runners will be significantly overrated with
formulas like this that are designed for all runners (and the slowest
runners will be underrated).
The solution is simple - don't use age-graded equivalent times to compare
runners - use the age graded percentages. Simply say that 10.96 is
considered 97% of the expected age graded performance and that anything over
95% is a world class masters performance. Don't try to compare it to an
open performance or Walt is right, it does more harm than good.
- Ed Parrot
