Amersham Open Masters Meet Age-Adjusted Formulae :

To add a new dimension to the Amersham Masters Open Meet, held regularly in February, we decided to introduce age-adjusted awards.

In order to do this fairly and with some degree of confidence in the quality of our results, we chose not to use the Finnish formula which has been described in the Master Swimmer. The Finnish formula is not very accurate when age-adjusting older swimmers, in fact any swimmer of age 98 takes zero time for an event! As we have entrants well into their 80s, the formula would have given them an unfair advantage. Also, the Finnish formula assumes that performance deteriorates identically for all strokes, men and women.

We therefore developed our own set of age-adjustment formulae. These are based on the Masters world records as at May 1996. The world records are a measure of the times that can be achieved by serious, committed swimmers of all ages up to 104. Thus we have a group of comparable people in terms of dedication and ability, the main difference being the effects of ageing. We carried out regression analyses on both men and women on all strokes over all distances. As we suspected, the curves obtained, although similar in shape, showed significant differences between men and women, between short and long distances and between the different strokes. For example, performance in 200m fly falls away much faster with age than in 50m freestyle. In all events, women's performance deteriorates faster with age than with men. From each of these curves we derived a formula to process that specific event.

For our own meet we used twelve different formulae, one for each individual event (50m all strokes, 200m freestyle and 100m IM). We calculated age to the day (date of meet - date of birth = age in days). With the age-adjusted results varying by only hundredths of seconds, we felt we were being as fair as possible to all ages. The final set of results appeared sensible. We had several very good older men competing who tended to dominate the age-adjusted results. In the women's events, the younger groups were more successful, although in the 50m backstroke, our champion (group L) won by 0.13 secs from the group A winner who was 0.25 secs ahead of the group F winner. Occasionally, someone finishing second in their age-group took an age-adjusted award ahead of the age-group winner.

We are convinced that while the Finnish formula is adequate for comparing one's own performances over time, it is not suitable for age-adjusted competitions. Age must be calculated to the day and the appropriate formula for the event applied. That way no-one and no age-group has any advantage.

Amersham SC hopes age-adjustment will provide inspiration for older swimmers in particular to compare themselves with the youngsters and perhaps collect a few additional meet prizes.

We will be repeating our age-adjusted competition, with trophies for 1st, 2nd & 3rd, in our Fifth Open Meet next February (please refer to the Master Swimmer calendar for full details).

We have made available age-adjustment charts for those events covered by our Amersham Open Meet, ranging from age 24 to 110, men and women. An example of how to age-adjust your own times is included.

As we have formulae for all events and all distances from 50m - 800m, we can age-adjust times for any selected event and plot them to give a performance graph with target times for the future.

The example below for a 60yr old man, plots his actual recorded times from age 46 onwards (upper line, left side) and his age-adjusted times for each of these swims (lower line, left side). His current age-adjusted performance has been projected forward for the next 20 yrs (lower line, right side) and the actual times he must continue to achieve to maintain his current performance level are plotted above (upper line, right side). These are his target times.

For details of any of the above, please contact :

	Pam Pitcher
	Sandycot
	Cadsden Road
	Princes Risborough, Bucks  HP27 0NB
	Tel : 01844 346687          pam@pamuk.demon.co.uk