SWS Updated Ranking with Beast Results

Skyrunner World Series has updated their annual ranking with last week’s race results from Beast of Big Creek.

Here’s how these rankings work (taken from the organizer PDF I received):

To appear in the overall ranking, athletes must complete FOUR races plus the SkyMasters – FIVE races in total. The top four results—along with the SkyMasters – will count toward the final standings. Qualification for the SkyMasters requires athletes to finish at least four races and secure a top -20 placing in one of them.

A total of seven races have been designated as RED races, each awarding 1.5x points. All other races will be known as the WHITE races. RED races will play a strategic role in the overall ranking, with the following combinations eligible:

• 2 RED + 2 WHITE + SkyMasters
• 1 RED + 3 WHITE + SkyMasters

Beast was a “RED” race and therefore runners were awarded 1.5 points. The point system works as follows:

• RED: 1st – 150pts. and descending from there based on placement.
• WHITE: 1st – 100pts. and descending from there based on placement.
• SKYMASTERS: 1st – 200pts. and descending from there based on placement.

This is all a bit confusing, but when you sit for it a bit it makes sense. There are ranking and qualification systems and in our sport, and most are much more straightforward: run a qualification race = qualify for the Finals. UTMB works like that – by and large, WSER with their Golden Ticket races, and even Hardrock in some sense. You just have to finish the qualifying race and you’re in… the lottery. World Trail Majors is trying a point system, but with their 100M distances it’s just too hard to get runners to commit to more than two races on their calendar thus making rankings largely uneventful. Golden Trail World Series has a similar ranking system and leaderboard but only has 7 races + the Finals.

The SWS rankings serve two purposes:

• Of course, and mostly they help elite runners plan their season, if they are all in on they skyrunning circuit.
• It’s a gauge and point of interest for fans, spectators if you will. You can actually follow your runners throughout the season. 18 races + the Spymaster Finals allows for a lot of movement on that table and a lot of strategic considerations.

For fans and spectators this could really be fun – and maybe even the missing piece to the whole fandom* thing we’ve been talking about now for awhile. I’ll have Etienne Rodriguez on Singletrack later this month to talk about all this and more.

*In any other sport the strategic conversations where fans debate the what ifs and what could be as teams meet week after week is half the fun. This is currently missing in trail running – mostly. A working leaderboard with real stakes attached it them could be a game changer.