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• WMA Indoor Championships, KOR
• 38th National Masters Athletics Championship, IND
• Deutsche Hallen- und Winterwurf Meisterschaften, GER
• NSW Masters Championships, AUS
• British Masters Championships, GBR
• Nordic Indoor Veteran Championship 2017, SWE
• Belgisch Kampioenschap Masters, BEL
• New Zealand Masters Championship, NZL
• XXVI Halowe Mistrzostwa Polski Weteranow, POL
• Irish Life Masters Indoor Championship, IRL
• Canadian Masters Indoor Championship, CAN
• BMAF Pentathlon, South of England Masters, Evac & Vac Championships & Open Meeting, GBR
• WP Championships 2017, RSA
• Campeonato Nacional Master Pista Coberta, POR
• England Masters Inter Area Match, GBR
• 27. Halove Mistrovstvi Cr V Atletice Veteranu, CZE
• Ontario Masters Indoor Championships, CAN
• Leo Benning 4 2017, RSA
• 2017 Brazos Valley Senior Games, USA
• Latvia Veterans Athletics Championship Indoor Open., LAT
• Scottish National Combined Events / Masters / Relay Championships, GBR
• QMA Gc & Southern Championships, AUS
• Masters Turkish Indoor Championship, TUR
• SCVA Championships, GBR

By now you should realize I need professional help. So many people used the same phrase when referring to something I had planned: “you are insane to try to…”. I do not argue with those statements but I knew, based on all the feedback from athletes, that having:

• An all-inclusive site with no minimum performance requirement;
• Keeping the site running while programming all the things required to handle Worldwide rankings;
• Allowing athlete submitted performances;
• Trying to compile rankings back to 2013;
• Trying to compile real time rankings so athletes can know where they stand throughout the year and set / change goals & training.

All the while, I’ve been progressing all facets plus keeping to policies and procedures in my head from when I started doing US rankings in 2007. Most of you probably have no idea that I routinely check performance accuracy and competition eligibility. Many of you are extremely helpful and I really appreciate each and every communication you send asking if something is correct – this site is much more accurate because of you.

Some of you comment how ridiculously fast corrections get made. These currently happen fast because you have timed it very well and your request was easy to fulfill. To all of you who have not seen the correction or a response, it is because either your request is more involved and therefore in my large pile of things to do, I received it when I was involved with something else and it is in the pile (I just responded to three that were over a year old – I’ll get to yours) or you may not have received my response because it went to spam or was outright blocked – very frustrating for me as I have no idea why some are blocked and have no other way to get in touch with you. One way you can get my response is to report something using the Contact form or clicking on a time, distance, height or score on any list when you are logged in. Each of these will be logged in the system and you can see my response through the system by clicking on ” Responses to your posts.” which appears in the upper right side of the site (if you’ve posted something).

I’ve been catching up like I’ve mentioned a couple of times. The emails to be addressed is now in 4 figures (addressed over 2,000 this month alone), removed almost 30,000 duplicate performances, made thousands of other corrections…making nice progress. Considering I’m catching up, I will be more actively doing some more QC:

• Checking performance validity: I’ve always done as well as having an unpublished process for addressing athletes who continually submit inaccurate marks. I receive a daily report of submitted performances, routinely review the log of all submitted performances, routinely receive notifications from athletes, etc. Several tools, like consistent performance level assessments and flagging exceptional performances, have been added to identify more performances to verify.
• Verifying competition eligibility: another ongoing effort that is now, thanks to tools recently created, much more automated to flag competitions for review. Competitions must be pre-scheduled, organized competitions run in accordance with WMA or National Governing Body rules to be eligible for these rankings. A few dozen competitions have been removed since 2007 because the athletes could not provide me with sufficient proof the competition was eligible. I am tweaking a new program which identifies competitions and expect that I will request more eligibility confirmations in 2017 than I have asked for all other years combined. Many of the competitions I’ve reviewed have been accepted so it is nothing more than due diligence.

The first draft of the policies are posted. These are mostly what has been practiced for years on this site. The Rankings Advisory Board will be reviewing and providing suggestions. Please feel free to provide your feedback on these and the Frequently Asked Questions (this is a list of the questions that will have answers). In addition to your thoughts, I would like to know what you think should be added.