University of Wisconsin–Parkside: Health, Exercise Science, and Sport Management

Academic Programs

Sports & Activity Center

Why WMA Age Graded Scoring?

We decided to use age graded scoring in the Bear Paws for a Cause Race to allow you to run with your family and friends and answer the question ‘who is the fastest?’ independent of age. It lets us compare everyone in the field equally.

This innovative and equitable way to score ‘best performances’ for runners age 35 and over and 19 and under was developed by the World Association of Veteran Athletes (WAVA). This is the governing body for master’s long distance running, racewalking and track and field. They did a lengthy and comprehensive study that involved the tracking of hundreds of thousands of times for runners between the ages of 8 and 100. Then separate standards were established for each of the standard road racing distances. The result was a formula for each age by gender which converts a runner’s actual time to an open time or in theory what a runner would have run in his or her prime (somewhere in the age range of 21-33).

For our race, our timing company, Wisconsin Runner, took the WAVA tables and adjusted them to this event (a non-standard race length and a trail course instead of a road course). They are running experts who ran multiple trials on data to make sure they had it just right.