CROSS COUNTRY SCORING EXPLAINED
From season 2012-13 there will be a slight change with the points system. Previously, 10 points down to 1 point were awarded to the finishing team order after each event. After the first event at Ynysawdre/Old Archbishop Schools, there were more than 10 schools scoring teams, which is really healthy for the league, but meant that a scoring team would not receive a point. It was therefore decided to score the points by the amount of teams finishing three scorers. For example, should only seven teams finish, the top team will receive seven points, if only two teams score, the top team receives two points (previously if only two finished they would have received 10 and 9 points).
This will ensure that every team is guaranteed to score points, but also, if there is a fixture where not many schools finish a scoring team, it will ensure that these teams will only receive the points pro rata, ensuring a tighter set of points totals within the league. This will help a school should they unfortunately have to miss a fixture due to unforeseen circumstances.
Old scoring system
Cross Country running is a wonderful sport, but many people don't know how the scoring works. A typical (not Bridgend Schools') cross-country race usually adopts the following format.
Typically, each team enters seven runners into a race. As each runner finishes the race, they are given a number according to what place they finish and that number is their score for the team. For instance, if you finish 1st, you have a score of 1 point. If you finish 24th, you have a score of 24.
A team's first five runners (doesn't matter which runners, just the first five that finish) are counted towards the team's total score.
If the first five runners come in 2nd, 7th, 8th, 12th, and 18th, then the team's score is 47. So, the lower your team score, the better.
But, that's not all. The other two runners (who come in after the first five runners on the team) do not count toward their team's score, but they can still help their team by making another team's score higher. If the seventh runner comes in before one or some of the first five from another team, then the other team's score becomes higher because their runners have bigger finishing scores. Remember, you want your score to be low.
A sweep is where the first five runners come in 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th giving them the lowest score possible of 15. Cross-Country races can also draw a huge number of participants, holding hundreds of runners.
The local South & East Wales Regional Schools' championships which are run at Trelai Park, Cardiff consider the top 4 runners for team points.
This is a useful LINK to the Welsh Athletics Yearbook 2010 (The yearbook will open in pdf format)
Welsh Athletics Yearbook 2011 here
BRIDGEND PRIMARY SCHOOLS' CROSS COUNTRY SCORING SYSTEM
The Bridgend Schools' system of scoring is very similar to what is described above but instead of the first 5 runners being included in the scoring system only the first 3 runners per school are recorded for team points. Also, more importantly, there are no restrictions on how many can run per school team. This is a vitally important element as the league has a strong emphasis on the benefits to 'HEALTH' and 'TAKING PART' regardless of ability.
You can get more information on cross country running from Wikipedia here.
You can search anything on Wikipedia below
