A multiplicative approach to decathlon scoring based on efficient frontiers
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Manuel Schütz
and
Chris Tofallis
Abstract
The decathlon consists of ten events with scores which are then aggregated to determine the final ranking. We develop a decathlon scoring method which is far simpler than the existing standard (IAAF1984) tables, as there are only 9 parameters instead of 30 which have an impact on the overall rank. We first identify athletes who are on the Pareto-efficient frontier i.e. those who are not dominated by anyone else. We then remove these frontier athletes and again pick all non-dominated athletes to obtain a second dominating group/Pareto frontier and iterate this procedure for the decathlon data from 1986 to 2020. Each of these groups are then characterized by their set of ten median performances. Improving from the last to the top group can then be seen as a path of progress, leading from the lowest to the highest set of median performances. Every event should have the same importance, so we normalize the data such that the path of progress follows as much as possible a space diagonal of a ten dimensional hypercube. Furthermore, any adjustment of a benchmark does not change any actual decathlon performance, hence there cannot be any unwanted rank reversals. This allows a smooth adjustment of these tables in the future, if for instance a new type of javelin needs to be introduced to reduce the range. We normalize such that current performances between 7000 and 9000 points still fall into the same range with our point tables.
Acknowledgement
Special thanks go to Daniel Urien who prepared all the necessary data for this study.
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Research ethics: Not applicable.
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Author contributions: The authors have accepted responsibility for theentire content of this manuscript and approved its submission.
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Competing interests: The authors state no conflict of interest.
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Research funding: None declared.
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Data availability: The raw data can be obtained on request from thecorresponding author.
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© 2023 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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- Research Articles
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- A multiplicative approach to decathlon scoring based on efficient frontiers
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Opponent choice in tournaments: winning and shirking
- Equity, diversity, and inclusion in sports analytics
- Estimating age-dependent performance in paired comparisons competitions: application to snooker
- Improving ranking quality and fairness in Swiss-system chess tournaments
- Fair world para masters point system for swimming
- A multiplicative approach to decathlon scoring based on efficient frontiers
