okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Age and the WOC Sprint
How old would you guess WOC sprint qualification race runners are? Give it some thought. Youngest? Oldest? Average age? Median age?
My guesses would have been something like 17 for the youngest, 43 for the oldest, and about 28 for average and median.
The WOC organizers made it quite easy to check. The results lists included year of birth. I pasted the results into a spreadsheet, made the calculations, and graphed the distribution (below).
Assuming the results list has the correct info...
It turns out the youngest was just 16 - Lulia Nahgibina from Moldova. She finished a bout a minute away from qualifying. The oldest was 49 - Khasanov from Kazakhstan. He finished 7 minutes away from qualifying. (I left Khasanov off the graph above because he is quite an outlier).
The average age was 26.6 and the median age was 26. So, I guess if you're over 26, you can start to think of yourself as old.
I turn 26.75 tomorrow and I'm already over-the-hill!
Back when I was in my prime (26.6 back in June), I ran in three sprint races. I did ok, I guess, finishing in the top 40% of each. 50%, here I come (again)!
Strange. Thierry gueorgiou is over 28 (http://tero1.free.fr/biografi/biografi.htm) and it seems that is not over... In sprint format, I have the feeling that 2007 is his best season.
