Disqualifications Shouldn’t Score Points

One of the things I like to do when starting out analyzing data is to find something easy to check against to make sure I’m doing things correctly. With the ISL, I have a ready-made sanity check: the score of the meet. If I can get the same score as the league, clearly I did something right. If I’m off by a few points, time to go find the bug in my code. If I’m off by a lot of points, well…

When I went through the first day of Naples, I had a discrepancy. The ISL’s official score (that they tweeted) was:

• Cali Condors: 237.5
• Energy Standard: 230.0
• Aqua Centurions: 174.0
• DC Trident: 162.5

But that wasn’t quite what I had. I had come up with:

• Cali Condors: 237.5
• Energy Standard: 228.0
• Aqua Centurions: 173.0
• DC Trident: 162.5

That is, two fewer points for Energy and one fewer point for Aqua. At first, I just brushed it off as I obviously made a mistake. I make them all the time, let’s try to track down the bug.

But there’s another interesting sanity check in this case to look at: what’s the total score? Individual events score 37 points and relays score double that, so it’s easy to count that the total score before any deductions for Day 1 (16 individual events and 3 relays) should have been 814 points. Day 1 had 5 deductions. In three cases, the qualifying standard was not met (Kierra Smith in the 50 breast, Philip Heintz in the 400 IM, and Aqua’s women’s freestyle relay) and there were additionally two disqualifications (Margherita Panziera in the 200 back and Energy’s famous DQ in the men’s medley relay). So that should subtract 4 points for the deductions, 3 points for individual DQ (because we go from scoring 1 point for 8th to -2 points), and 6 points for the relay DQ (likewise going from scoring 2 points for 8th to -4 points). Put it all together, you get 814 – 4 – 9 = 801 points total.

My score does sum up to 801. But ISL’s sums up to 804.

My best understanding of the difference has to do with the disqualifications. The rules say:

“If a swimmer, in any given individual event, does not finish (DNF) the race or is disqualified, then the swimmer will receive -2 points (minus 2).”

The relay rule is the same, except -4.

I would interpret that as: Panziera scores -2 points for the 200 backstroke and Energy’s relay scores -4 points. Other folks at SwimSwam interpret this rule the same way – we ran a post about Energy’s DQ which described that relay as scoring -4 points instead of 14.

Note that this rule is worded notably differently than the rule around meeting the minimal standards:

“If a swimmer, in any given individual event, is slower than the respective times seen on the table below, then the swimmer will receive -1 point (minus 1) from the actual points his/her place refers to.”

Before we had “will receive -2 points” for DQs, but here we have “will receive -1 point […] from the actual points his/her place refers to.” This wording is notably different because the situation is different: one case is an absolute score of -2 points due to the DQ (or DNF) and the other case is a relative score of -1 points due to failing to meet the standard (but still legally finishing the race and placing).

But that’s not how the ISL apparently scored this event. I think they still awarded Panziera 1 point for 8th place and then deducted 2 for the DQ. And likewise still awarded Energy 2 points for 8th place and then deducted 4 for the DQ. That accounts for the 3 point difference. This does not make sense to me. If you got disqualified in an event, you did not finish 8th – you did not place at all! Disqualifications shouldn’t get awarded points, but in a way that’s what happened here. Even though the total amount that Panziera and Energy scored was negative, they still gained points on top of their deduction. That just seems like a mistake.

All in all, I believe the final score of Naples should actually be:

• 491.0 – Energy Standard
• 490.5 – Cali Condors
• 322.0 – DC Trident
• 320.5 – Aqua Centurions

Thankfully, no change in place. But very very nearly so!