Competition Rules and Scoring

Rules

Age                  Senior Competition, no U20’s or U17’s will be considered for the UK Challenge Rankings or Final. This does not exclude athletes from competing in the events that are part of the UK Challenge however the performances will not be scored and athletes will not be considered when inviting athletes to the Final.

Eligibility           Athletes must be eligible to compete for Great Britain and Northern Ireland to be considered as part of the UK Challenge.

Scoring

All of your performances during the UK Challenge will be converted into points using the `Points Tables` as noted below. There are also additional ways of earning points for your overall total. Your 4 best performances or `Fantastic Four` plus any bonus points will then be added together and shown in the UKC Rankings.

Fantastic Four

Your four best performances across the UK Challenge plus any bonus points will be simply added together to formulate your grand total that will determine your final placing in the UK Challenge Rankings. Your `Fantastic Four` can be achieved in your first four performances of the year, the last four or anytime during the season. Irrespective of when they are achieved, they will be considered as your four highest scores and added together.

In certain events where there are limited opportunities such as the Steeplechase, less than 4 performances will be considered. The athlete’s performance will be converted using the tables as noted later.

Additional Bonus Points

If you achieve any of the following you will receive bonus points.

Personal Best                If an athlete breaks their existing Personal Best during a UK Challenge qualifying event they will be awarded 5 points. They will receive these bonus points each time they set a new PB at a UK Challenge qualifying event.

Winner                          If an athlete is the highest overall points scorer at any of the 42 UK Challenge Qualifying Events they will receive an additional 10 points. If two or more athletes score the same number of points they will all receive 10 points. If an athlete wins two different events during the season they will receive 10 points each time

National P10                  If an athlete achieves a National P10 mark at any of the UK Challenge Qualifying events they will receive an additional 15 points. This will only be awarded once during the course of the Challenge.

UK Challenge                If an athlete breaks an existing UK Challenge Record during the course

Records                        of the 42 UK Challenge Qualifying events they will receive an additional 20 points. This will be awarded each time the record is broken. These records are displayed on the UKA website.

Points Table

These point’s tables have been carefully devised to give the greatest rewards to athletes who compete regularly in the UK Challenge meetings. The tables also allow established international-standard athletes to participate in some of the meetings and rank highly, but the points system will not allow them to finish the overall Challenge competition ahead of the lower-tier athletes who compete more often.

For example, in the 100m, male sprinters will earn 100 points each time they clock 10.80 seconds, rising to 200 points for 10.30 and 250 points for 10.05. Every 100^th of a second improvement will be worth two more points. In the 2004 UK rankings, five men clocked 10.30 or better, and 57 beat 10.80. While sprinters in the ‘fast five’ category will be expected to compete in one or two of the Challenge meetings, they will be prioritising International Championships and Grand Prix during most of the summer – leaving the next 50-plus UK sprinters to hot-up the Challenge competition more frequently.

These are the points that can be earned in all events during the 42 meetings of UK Challenge.