By Godfrey Wenness

The WPRS has been around for many years now and has been the subject of many calls for its calculations to be overhauled due to obvious glaring faults. Heeding this, FAI/CIVL agreed to changes presented by our very own delegate, Stewart Dennis, this year at its annual Plenary sessions in Guatemala. The new system will be fairer and more representative of a pilot's actual world ranking. It has been in operation since June.

Why the change? Well, there were a number of major flaws with the old system...

The previous system suffered significantly due to the abrupt 18 month score cut off period such that each hemisphere's seasons, and therefore summer event period, would alternately double up compared to the other every six months. Thus, during one period a year, the southern pilots would have two summer seasons counting while the northern pilots only had one, and vice versa. It just so happened that most of the high level events occurred in the northern summer.

It was recognised also that major European events and PWCs with their higher pilot field quality were at a disadvantage when one considers the identical points scale was available for ones with lower quality/ranked pilots attending elsewhere. Hence the aberration that many pilots were, from time to time, actually placed in the top 10 or 20 in the world, when they clearly and realistically weren't.

The result was that the system produced rankings that swung wildly from season to season and some pilots have been high up or even occasionally at the top of the "World Rankings" purely by system default and not actual relative performance or merit. Many Australian pilots have been in this situation and some even blatantly advertise this rather hollow ranking to an unsuspecting public... A simple averaging of the monthly or quarterly rankings over the applicable 18 month period gives a much clearer picture to such claims in the old system.

The new system elevates the points available for a Cat 2 competition from 67 to 80, closing the gap with Cat 1 competitions (Worlds and Euros) which get 100 points. It also uses a gradual event score decline rather than a sudden drop off at 18 months to iron out the seasonal fluctuations that have caused so many problems. The previous requirement to have 100 pilots entered to obtain 100% validity has been reduced to 80 pilots in a move to promote safety limits at smaller sites and recognise the fact that events can be of high quality without 100-plus pilots present.

The new system also takes into account pilot quality factors from the rankings and applies them to each event in the form of a points curve. Previously this was a straight line from 67 to 0 (1st gets 67 points, 2nd gets 66 points, etc) with pilots placed after 67th getting no points at all and thus no WPRS ranking. The new system also gives the last placed pilot a point so that they now can appear on the rankings.

Previously the 15th pilot in a PWC got 52 points - the same as 15th in a local Cat 2 event with only local and no top pilots present. Thus pilots who attended four valid local events and placed an average of 15th would have a WPRS ranking equal to a high class pilot who came an average of 15th in the PWC! - clearly not a reflection of their relative performance for a world ranking system to be based on.

The new system adjusts the points scale line to a floating curve so that a PWC (or any other) event with a high pilot quality factor (ie many high ranked pilots competing) would result in more points for those higher up. First place still gets a maximum of 80 points if the event was valid, regardless of pilot quality factor. Thus a PWC pilot in 15th place may now get 70 points, but 15th in a typical local event may only receive 50 points or less (equating to say 60th in a PWC).

The new system has already reduced the gross inaccuracies that plagued the previous one and is now providing a better picture of where pilots' rankings stand on the current world competition stage. Of course you still have to compete regularly to get and maintain a ranking ...

The WPRS info webpage can be found at [www.fai.org/hang_gliding/node/69].


Sub-ed note: For those wondering, the WPRS for hang gliding is very similar to the new paragliding WPRS detailed above. The changes to the paragliding system were modelled on the current hang gliding WPRS, with some slight formulae modifications.