The Karla Konundrum
Posted on August 17, 2018 by duncan
Karla in the 200m at Porto Alegre WC (2013) – Photo courtesy Doug "Shaggy" Smith
This post talks to how "numbers" can play tricks on you. Sometimes you need to be careful. Age Grade percentages versus duncanSCORE percentiles can sometimes be eerily similar despite the fact they are comparing to different "realities" (in the case of AG against the theoretical best possible performance, dSCORE against your peers across the globe). Let's do a deep dive on these numbers.
Recently, Canada's superstar women's sprinter, Karla Del Grande set 2 new (pending) World records (100m and 200m) for W65 at the Canadian outdoor championships. She currently holds those Outdoor World records for W60. She also came very close to a new WR in the 400 (3/100 shy). This was her first National championship in a new age-group (W65).
The Hytek scoring system spits out these Age Grades (latest 5 year Age Grades based on 2014-2015) for the 100m as 96.49%, for the 200 as 99.16%, and the 400m as 96.96%. All exceptionally high AGs, as you would expect. But note, the 100m is her "poorest" AG, just oh so slightly inferior to her 400m AG (despite the 100 being a WR and 400 not!) The 200m AG is over 2 1/2 pts better than the 100m. And here are her AGs for her W60 100m and 200m world records … 100m – 98.83 and 200m 100.64. So AG says her most recent performances are not as good as 5 years ago. (But in AG's defence, there is certainly more to come as Karla builds and heads to Malaga for the 2018 WC).
Maybe you're asking what are her duncanSCORES? I'm glad you're asking.
Her 13.96 W65 100m converts to a 966 duncanSCORE (97 percentile). The 28.53 200 converts to an almost identical 967 SCORE (97 percentile). The 400m also rates incredibly high – 952 SCORE, 95 percentile.
The duncanSCORES rate her 100 and 200 performances as identical. The 400, 1 1/2% inferior. AG says the 100m was the poorest performance, the 200 the best. And the 400 2.37% worse than the 200. Her W60 world records in the 100 and 200 also rate near identical scores (954/95 percentile and 953/95 percentile).
So the 2 grading systems yield differing results. AG says the 200 is Karla's best event, and as of right now, her 2 new WRs are much less than her W60 records. dSCORES indicate that her 100 and 200 are equally her best, and that versus her peers, in 5 years she has improved significantly.
You choose!
But definitely run the duncanSCORE (duncanSCORE) and enter some of your past performances. See what it says about how you are doing (versus your peers in the same age group) then, ,versus now. How are you faring?
Postscript: The week after her new 100m and 200m WR, Karla ran in an invitational Masters 100m at the NACAC (North and Central American, Caribbean) Championships. She ran 13.91! Primed for Malaga
This entry was posted in Age Grading, dSCORE percentile, Karla Del Grande, Using dSCORES for trending performance, World Record by duncan. Bookmark the permalink.