Age-Graded Tables get Guardian attention and blogger confusion

The Guardian — home to Ed Snowden’s revelations — is normally a first-class news outlet. But Ian Williams’ blog on the British site makes a mash of the Age-Graded Tables, saying: “Let’s concentrate on that 60-year-old man, and imagine him running his 10k at four-fifths of world record speed. WAVA automatically gives him full marks – a 100% WAVA rating, top of the pile. But if you’re the same age and gender, and can run at half the speed he does, then you score 50% WAVA. If you run at three-quarters of his speed, you get 75% WAVA – and so on.” I won’t bother to parse all the errors, but suffice to say 50% on the WMA Age-Graded Tables doesn’t mean you run half as fast (or twice as fast, as suggested). But at least masters athletics continues to seep into the media mainstream. Here’s Ian being interviewed:

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December 12, 2013

One Response

  1. Charlie Pearce - September 27, 2018

    Apologies for dragging up a *very* old topic, but why do you say ‘50% on the WMA Age-Graded Tables doesn’t mean you run half as fast’?

    If the calculation is:

    (OC / Factor) / Your time

    or, to simplify it:

    Age-graded OC / Your time

    then surely that’s exactly what it means.

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