Hy-Tek meet software updated to reflect 2010 Age-Graded Tables
Charlie Hodgson
Hy-Tek’s meet-management software is basically the only kind used for USATF and collegiate meets. So when this software changes, everyone is affected.
Masterstrack.com: Does the latest meet-management software incorporate the 2010 WMA tables?
Charlie Hodgson: Yes.
How do people know if their software has the 2010 tables?
If they have version 2.0Di or later with a revision date of May 26, 2010, or later, then they have the 2010 tables. Click Help / About to display this information.
If they don’t have the 2010 tables, how can they get an update of their software?
They must have version 2.0. In 2.0, by clicking Check for Updates at the top of the main screen, they can get the latest version.
Does the update cost anything if you already have the Hy-Tek software?
No, if you have 2.0.
Has Hy-Tek contacted people with track software to let them know of the 2010 tables?
We are not able to do that sort of thing. The release notes mention it and it is up to the users to keep up to date with the free updates obtained by clicking Check for Updates.
Has WMA cooperated with you on updating your software?
I was provided the new tables by Sandy Pashkin. I consulted with Rex Harvey to be sure to understand the tables.
Anything else we need to know about your software and the 2010 update?
Yes. The age factors I was provided was only for Combined Events and not for all events, and they were only for 5-year tables. So there are no one-year tables for these events. All other non-Combined Event tables still use the 2006 numbers and they can be used as 1-year tables or 5-year tables.
14 Responses
Does anyone know whether the European Championship records in the combined events have been updated to the new tables?
It would be disappointing for a record to be missed in the approaching championships because an athlete is scoring by the new tables but the record is based on the old ones!
I competed last weekend at the Eastern Region USATF meet in Valatie, NY. Unfortunately the masters multi events were scored using the older tables, not the new 2010 tables.
The lists on the site of Bernd Rehpenning are all in the new gradings. So it’s easy to find out the records.
I wonder how records can be claimed when the basis for scoring keeps changing ?
This is not unique to multi-event competition. The same is true for such events as the javelin, etc. Not only technology, but various rule changes muddy the water for record keeping.
I remember seeing the last pole vault world record set with a stiff pole. Now some vaulters go more than two feet higher. Are they actually better vaulters ?
Unlike most other sports, we can claim a high degree of objectivity in our performances, but when it comes to records the absoluteness is diminished in several events by both technology and rules changes.
There is no over-riding reason for most of the rules changes we have had over the past few decades, but I have to admit that safety has been a driving force behind a lot of the improvements in technology. How would you like to come down into a sawdust or sand pit from a 7+ foot high jump or a 20+ foot vault ? I think the prospect might have some effect on your performance.
Why are the scoring tables for multi events changed ? What purpose does it serve ? Certainly it isn’t for enhanced safety.
Ron K.
Sorry, but age grading in general as well as adjusting weight levels in throws as one gets older is in place to make the older athlete feel better about him, or herself. I don’t know on what planet or mathematical world these assumption are made up, but their absolutely ridiculous in my eyes. They just boosts numbers and gives some hypothetical judgement call that your score now at 70 years or whatever age, means you would be doing a certain time or distance at 25 or 30? Making different weighted implements for older athletes is a deception as well. If your not physically capable anymore of throwing a 16 pound shot, throw the discus…discus is too heavy, try the javelin, no luck there…there’s the softball throw or football throw at the Senior games, can’t throw a spiral, race walking may be your huckleberry…Again, I see too often, many athletes in older age groups taking up throwing because as some say “They once threw it in High school” and because the implements are so light, they are convinced they should now be good at it. Where in reality, some have no business in the ring, possibly hurting themselves and endagering the safety of others as well as taking up valuble time. It also seems somewhat disrespectful to others that have taken their events seriously, as some may unknowingly, make mockery out of themselves. That would be the same as if I endagered myself and took up valuble time of other pole vaulters just because I found it cool and had the mind set that “Nobody should tell ME what event I can, or can not do”. I’m sure other experienced vaulters would be non too happy with my fat a–- taking up their time, safety and making their event seem like a joke. If your still able to throw a 16lb. shot at 60 + years old, 25 feet or further, that says more to me about you as an athlete than throwing a 11lb. shot 33′. If this age grading and implement lowering is best for older athletes, make the 100 meters for a 60 year old man 70 meters…the 200m into the 140m. the 400m. into the 280 m. Thats about the same percentage drop in distance as the shot put weight is lowered form the standard weight to acccomodate a 60 year old thrower… Why not the rest of the events in track and field? It seems to me that when an older runner can’t run a certain event anymore physically , he , or she, simply finds another event to compete in that suits them better physically, they don’t change the distance of the event to suit them. It should be no different in throwing. You want know where you stand against a 35 year old athlete, just compare your times and marks head to head with him. Take some pride in the fact your still able to compete and attempt certain events at an older age as a huge accomplishment… but instead we conjure up formulas that give us fantasy notions that we somehow are on the same plain as a 25 year old…Is there a possibly that Charles Hodgson is the real Doc Brown working these age grading formulas up somewhere in his garage laboratory and is about to send Marty McFly, “Back to the Future” to set a new hurdles record??…Sounds like sequel #4 hit to me!!
Throwing 5 meters for a very old thrower and 15 meters for a kid is easy to measure, it’s the same measuring tape. The stopwatch for the runs does not complain when times becames slower. But in the multi’s it’s not that easy, decline in all disciplines goes different and the closer you come to zero points the more nonsensical the results of multi’s become. That’s why there are age gradings for the muti events.
You can use age gradings for comparing with colleagues of the same age class, maybe also with one ag class up or down, but do not take it too serious. The gradings suggest a result for open class, but the suggestion is false, I think.
I agree with most of what Milton and Ron said above.
I have to admit that I am pretty turned off that about implements continuously getting lighter and about having to use age graded tables in multi-events. As someone who was a decathlete in my earlier life, my experience is that if you are smart, you study the tables and design your training around estimating your potential in each event. Your overall total score is what matters. But, artificially padding scores in each event and continuously changing the scoring tables (it seems like about 3 times just since I have been a master), at least for me undermines some of the fun of the event because at least this last time around, whoever changed the tables this time made my best events score less comparatively to the other events. Why was this necessary? Who knows?
If we just were to stick with the regular IAAF scoring tables like the under 40 athletes do, improperly or mistakenly handicapping various events and making continuous changes would be a non-issue and nobody could feel that their best events are being downgraded so they get less points than they did before. So for me, I am starting to lose interest in doing the multi-events. It’s a shame.
The only thing that does make sense though is hurdle heights and maybe distance between hurdles as we get older but only for safety’s sake.
This is not an age grading question, but a combined-events scoring question. Does anyone know where to find the formula (or a table) for scoring the hammer and the weight throws in the throws pentathlon? I have scavenged for hours to no avail.
FR: David E. Ortman (M57) Seattle, WA
I agree with Steve Kemp. Multiple age-graded tables for multi-events does not make for multi-fun. Of course, the open decathlon scoring tables have also changed over the years, making it difficult to compare open decathlon totals in different eras without the raw scores. (There seems to have been decathlon scoring table changes made in 1884, 1912, 1920, 1934, 1950, 1962, 1984, and 1998.)
Ironically, the only “official” use of the masters age-graded tables is for multi-event scoring to convert our “masters” marks in order to use the open decathlon scoring tables. But the fact is you don’t need to use the age-graded tables. The regular decathlon tables work just fine as long as you are willing to accept very low scores. For example, on the open IAAF Decathlon tables (using open implements):
100m 17.83 = 1 point
Long Jump 2.25m – 1 point
Shot Put 1.53m = 1 point
High Jump 0.77m = 2 points
400m 81.21 = 1 point
110mH 28.09 = 1 point
Discus 4.10m = 1 point
Pole Vault 1.03m = 1 point
Javelin 7.12m = 1 point
1500m 7:54.11 = 1 point
As for changing implement weights and event distances see my NMN “False Start” article of December 1999.
http://ortmanmarchand.com/fs6.html
For those who want Throws Pentathlon scoring, go to
http://www.usatfmasters.org/ev_throws.htm
and download the spreadsheet. It’s all there. The Ultraweight Pentathlon sheets will be up very soon (the one there now for the men is NOT accurate).
I’ve got to disagree with Milton. As a decathlete; I feel it’s more likely an older individual would hurt himself throwing a 16 pound shot. As far as scoring tables are concerned; I think it’s ridiculus for me( age 51) to think I could throw what I did as a 25 year old. No way anyone maintains that kind of strenghth.
As David Ortman says, over time, tables will change. From 1974-1984, when I trained for the decathlon, the tables never changed. They changed, as they should in 1962 to accommodate new technology in the pole vault but then not again until 1984-85, when the javelin was adjusted. As for masters track, there does not seem to be any rhyme or reason the tables are changed every few years or so. It always causes a lot of confusion, not only for existing competitors who are always trying to adjust their training to the tables but for comparisons of past scores to current or scores that occur in the future. You are always wondering, which tables are being used for the score you are looking at? And herein lies another one of the problems with having age-graded tables. It’s is a huge problem to figure out what you are looking at unless you have the times and distances in every event shown with the score….which is rarely the case.
These problems could all be alleviated by just using a non-age graded table, like the standard IAAF tables. Everybody else in the open events are content to know that they ran a 14.20 100 meter and five years ago ran a 13.50, for example without giving themselves a bigger pat on the back showing they are “age grading better than so and so”. If you want to use age graded tables just to gauge your percentage decline, just for fun….great! I see no reason why not. But like I said in an earlier email…multi-events are losing their fun for me when some of my best events are being downgraded for no reason other than to satisfy an arbitrary committee of people changing the scoring tables again. So, I am losing interest in the whole concept of participating in age grading as a way of determining placings and rankings in multi events.
One more thing about people worried about injuries in throws…proper technique 99.99% of the time is the cause of not being injured. In any event, including sprints, improper biomechanics is the cause of injury. And this is often due to fatigue where people start to “compensate”, using their dominant muscles which override their weaker ones and then the dominant muscles become too tired too quickly and thus…the injury occurs. So proper technique, with the regular implements would be the answer. Only hurdle height to me makes sense to change because of age.
These tables change the nature of the event not just making an adjustment. There needs to be a true justification for any change and it was not done in some circumstances. It was also not justified by previous marks, history, age grade or percentage. Its is obvious the heavy set somatatype person has been given the advantage in all future scoring if this 2010 table is kept. There was nothing wrong with the old one that a few points could not fix. Not hundreds of points difference in some events and still not equal what was previously scored. That is what is not right. The event has changed due to this formula esp in the m50 and above catagories in a couple events. This is clearly breaking with the rules and not as the rules for making changes as set forth by the WMA spell out.
I agree with Mark Williamson. I believe that turnouts at meets may be affected by those who are changing perfectly good track and field scoring rules in order to alter the outcome of multi events competitions and rankings. I know I can’t be the only person who believes that in track we NEED a level playing field.
In the 50-59 age categories, the discus and the javelin have changed weights more than once and it becomes next to impossible to compare people from different eras fairly. The whole process of scoring a meet nowadays, doing rankings and in some cases submitting papers for a world or American record are so complex that no two people are likely to hold the same opinion of what is going on anymore.
Some people ask “why are turnouts getting so low”. It’s not just because of the economy. It’s how hokey Masters Track is looking.
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