I agree with Celia's comments, and seeing a couple of
the replies, and IMHO think that:
As suggested by Tom, individual handicapping will
measure "most improved", which may favour a particular
age group. A "most improved" award could also be
given at the end of year, but leaving the age/gender
handicapping as simply finding the fastest relative to
age & gender related differences (I hesitate to say
"deterioration" with age).
I would suggest that even the current age related
calculations are unsound (though I obviously don't
know from what scientific research these numbers were
presented) - for example, I question whether women
deteriorate faster with age than men. But, I would
suggest that we use sound data from "top of class"
performances to arrive at handicapping that corrects
everyone to approximately the same mean time (as
Celia's suggestion). Let's aim to keep improving such
statistics (not difficult mathematics, and really
should reflect always current understanding (OK, so
I'm a "Mathie")). We might also use club averages for
each age category, except for the obscure observation
that VetB outperform VetA as a group - which would
lead to a strange advantage to VetA if we were to use
exclusively club averages to arrive at handicaps.
Furthermore, for handicapping I see no reason to
simply find the fastest handicap rider on only one day
(and especially since handicap calculations are
published at the start of the season (though this
needn't be a requirement)). With computers, it is a
simple matter to calculate handicap times always.
Michael
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