Faqs 

How are Regular Season Ranking Points Calculated?

We now have regular season rankings available in a new format.

But a big question is always "what's the secret to how you calculate them".

For a bit of context, a Race Director may setup their race in whatever configuration is best for them and their paddlers. This means there is no 'standardization' across elements of that race such as age group, distance, craft type etc.

This makes any comparisons (rankings) purely subjective.

So in order to publish rankings we have tried to keep it simple, as our sport starts to standardize and we gather more data points, we will add more checks into the algorithm.

As it is right now however, this is what we do ;
 
a) Filter all results we have been able to gather based on craft type, ie SUP (note some races actually have mixed craft in the same race, this will become important later)

b) Split all filtered results between female and male, so you will see a gender place in the summary and detailed rows for each paddler.

c) Sorted gender results based on overall placing and ordered them specifically on SUP craft. For example, if a paddler was 5th overall BUT first SUP paddler behind 4 OC's or Surfskis in a mixed craft race, they were given first place overall from the perspective of SUP.

d) We then assigned points based on the ICF allocation in Appendix A of their 2023 Rule Book, for example 1100 for first, 1050 for second down thru 100th place.

e) The overall gender points for rankings were then calculated from the top 5 (or less if we only have 2 results for example) results for each paddler. For example Candice had 13 races we found results for, but in her top 5 she got first female SUP paddler, so was assigned 1100 points in each giving a total of 5500 points.  

f) The female and male rankings are then what you on our web pages.

How are National Championship Ranking Points Calculated?

For the USA SUP National Championships (at least 2023 & 2024), we used a web based software application called Liveheats. This software offers us a number of advantages as we evolve our sport towards 3 day events and specifically the 3 disciplines (Sprint, Tech and Distance) of which Sprint and Tech in particular have heats and progressions, something we often see in other mainstream sports today.

Liveheats then keeps track of each athlete as they progress through heats to finals, and ultimately completion of the competition. They then add up points awarded for placings in each discipline to provide a total per division, for example '200M Sprints Grand Masters Female'

So for the Nationals we simply took the Liveheats results, totaled them across the 3 disciplines we had said counted toward "Overall" champions and then displayed on the page you see, while adding a little extra info like region.  

Where did you get all the results from? 

Other than Nationals, we gather the results from the data each of the known Race Registrars, and other Event Timing companies, has made publicly available. We continue to work toward identifying other new registrars and event timing companies which may also have results we are not currently aware of. Known registrars: PaddleGuru, Webscorer, and Run Sign Up.

Why didn’t my race result count in the overall ranking?

There are a few reasons why your result was not counted:

• The results for the race you attended were not made publicly available by one of the known Race Registrars or Event Timing companies.

• You 'did not start' (DNS), 'did not finish' (DNF) or were 'disqualified' (DQ).

• The race you participated in did not collect results. For example there were 98 events listed in Paddleguru alone that had "No Results Available" or "These results are Private", and so were not available for ranking purposes.

• We made a mistake! 
  
  

Please let us know if we made a mistake by sending an email to rankings at USA SUP or adding a comment in the Members' Rankings Forum on our website, and we'd be happy to look at where we went wrong and update results as appropriate.  We will apply our learnings to future ranking efforts.

Why do you have a ranking for USA SUP (members) and a ranking for USA SUP (members and non-members)?

We would love for everyone to be an USA SUP member! Please help us support our organization because it is a grassroots non-profit built by people who are passionate about the sport. We are providing a ranking for both members and overall of those in the community because we promised from the beginning that we would do so. 

As we announce the current results, we are looking forward to more members to join USA SUP. At some point in the future, when we have a critical mass of most paddlers as part of USA SUP, we will announce ranking for members only.

How do you break ties if I have the same overall points as someone else?

At this time, although we have a "tie-breaker" algorithm designed we have not yet implemented it as there are many edge cases which need consideration.

If you have the same overall points as another paddler, currently it is purely arbitrary whether you or they are displayed first on the web page.

As we gather more data points and evolve our algorithm, we will add more complex checks to both the initial points allocation and tie-breakers.

What do the Regions and colored flags for?

The colors reference the six USA SUP Regions. While we had originally hoped to have ALL paddlers listed by Regions, we actually dont have enough information, to be able to complete that goal.

What we do have however, is our Member and Contact database. When we analyze the results for each race, we try to 'match' the paddler name to our member database. If we find a match, we determine region and display it next to your results.

There are many reasons why we may not be able to find a match, even if you are on our member / contact list, mis-spellings or a change of name due to marriage (congratulations) for example,.

We have many checks in the algorithm looking secifically for name variations, but if you think we should have your region listed and it is not, please let us know 


Can I share the results with my community or on social media?

Absolutely! We would love for you to share your ranking with your paddling community, family and friends, the more the merrier. We look forward to building a great platform for ranked results for USA SUP!