Rankings? What are Those?
In many sports creating ways to compare the athletes based on their competition results is a popular feature. When we read about Sports we are often reading stories about how certain teams or athletes have moved up or down in a sport’s Rankings.
Orienteering is no different. Our national level events are called NREs – National Ranking Events – and many of America’s top orienteers will build their schedule of events around where they can improve their standing in the Ranking points.
The Florida JROTC competitions have their own Rankings system. It is unofficial and does not return any awards to the top ranked JROTC orienteers but the Rankings do recognize achievement and it seems that is enough.
Why is there a Ranking system? By orienteering norms Florida JROTC competitions are large events. On some days there can be upwards of 100 entries in a single class. Only the top three to five will be recognized with medals. What about the rest? Shouldn’t those finishing ‘just off the podium’ have a chance to have that achievement noted. Shouldn’t the coaches and team leaders want to know and have a record of who is making progress through the ranks? I thought so. In 2014 I started experimenting with a Rankings and it has grown from there.
How does the Ranking system work? Cadets earn points for their placing in each JROTC orienteering competition. Most events have 40 points for a win with a downward scale until we get to six points for every successful finish of a course. DQ’s. DNF’s and MP’s earn no points. Regional and State Championships earn points on a higher scale.
All Florida JROTC competitions are ranked and so are the results of Florida cadets going to competitions out of state.
The individual rankings are updated after each competition. The 2022-23 Rankings are posted here.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1kHfFd0YgU8HMbdqDMIcUbcp19Yk5DgVZd2ieEbUrTVE/edit#gid=0