News

19th July 2011 Furey Insurances 5K Series Finale on Wednesday Night

The sixth and final race in the Furey Insurances 5K series concludes the 2011 action tomorrow night Wednesday 20th July on the two lap Baliniska circuit with the Sports Complex once again the race HQ. Entries will be taken there from 6pm on the night for the race start at 7 30pm. The Post race Awards and refreshments will be at 8 30pm approx back at the Complex.

Each of the six Series races has a £420 prize fund and of course there also is the overall £700 available for distribution to the top Open, Masters and U 20,s based on their best four series performances. In addition all who have completed a minimum of four races qualify for one of the much coveted series T shirts.

All intending participants are asked to arrive in good time to enter as the race HQ is about half a mile from the start on Disc Drive in the Baliniska Industrial Estate. The two lap course is good for spectators and the race traditionally always draws a massive spectator input, much appreciated by the runners. Hopefully the weather will be kind on the night and the 2011 series will conclude on a decent evening for running.

Gerry Lynch

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OVERALL SERIES AWARDS

Scott Rankin has the overall series lead and it is almost impossible that he will be caught. The runners up position in the male open is between Noel Logan, Pius McIntyre, James Brown and Chris McPeake with Logan having a slight lead at this stage. In the womens open contest Anne Paul looks uncatchable if she turns out for the last race and the battle for the runners up spot is a tight affair between Theresa Doherty, Rosie O'Brien, Gemma Turley and Catherine Lilburn. All will be decided tomorrow night.

The masters is decided on age graded average time results and Christy McMonagle and Peter Lilburn appear to have the male 1-2 in the bag. The womens is a bigger question. While Anne Paul would also win this, if she wins the open then the next one down will take the title. Roisin Lynch has the next best time and looks to be unbeatable by anyone but Paul. If Anne is out then the runners up spot will be between Bridgeen Byrne and Rosie O Brien. The U20 male looks to be settled with Conor Doherty having a lead over John O'Neill. All sounds simple eh? :)

The attached spreadsheet shows the calculations to reach these conclusions and in my opinion this is the fairest method of calculating the overall wins. I know there will be some who say I am overcomplicating things unnecessarily but I have given this much thought and have not been able to come up with a better system. I am available to argue the pros and cons of my system with anyone who could be bothered. Spreadsheet here

Eoghan Furey

Below is an explanation of how the percentage system operates using Anne Paul as an example.

The overall scoring system basically divides each persons position in the race by the number of people in the race. This way everyone gets a percentage for each race. For the women I have removed all the men from the race to make it fairer. The percentage for the best 4 races is then averaged out and the highest wins the open cat. This is the only way to make all courses and fields equal. For example, Anne's 3rd place in buncrana with 80 females is worth 96.25% and her win in Culmore with only 15 females is worth 93.33%. This works on the number of people beat. The attached spreadsheet shows all the calculations so far. The overall female after 5 tab shows the average percentages so far. If she races tomorrow it is very unlikely that she can be caught for the overall win.