There's a joke about a guy who complained to God about not winning the lottery despite having prayed for it daily. In response, the sky came apart and a resounding voice said: “Dude, give me a chance. At least get the ticket!” It's the same with this URPA Ranking. To gain anything from being in it, you have to sign up for it yourself. The Ranking is not a reco man that will always find you on his own! You have to sign up on your own.

The Ranking is a “dangerous tool”, according to some people...

Some might ask: why is the Ranking introduced only now? The idea of the URPA Ranking came up many years ago. However, the organizing structures of armwrestling around the world hadn't been ready for it yet. This is why we've worked on URPA for such a long time. When the time to set up the Ranking came, it turned out that it's such a dangerous tool for the world of armwrestling that WAF and EAF unanimously said “NO” to our ranking system. This is why no competitions by WAF and EAF will be considered in URPA. We won't say anything more about this. After reading this text, you will know exactly where the resistance came from.

Standards!

The URPA Ranking begins with introducing standards. The overall rule of comparing anything in the world is to create a uniform comparison environment. We can't compare two colours if we don't see them in equal lighting. We can't compare the mass of two objects if we don't use a uniform, certified and precise scale.

That's why the basis of introducing any competitions to URPA is the requirement of fulfilling URPA conditions, including: URPA referees (who have the needed knowledge and experience), uniform tables (duels on different tables are different, the placement of pillows is important), type of the ladder, protocols according to which the competitors duel etc.

If all of these conditions are fulfilled, we can move on to comparing competitors.

How to compare competitors?

The competitor's engagement is the most important in URPA. If there's a very strong athlete who came to competition and tore everyone down without any trouble, then they are (or was at that time) the strongest. It's obvious. But if this athlete doesn't compete for the next two years, then are they still the best? Or are they just a legend?

If they didn't give a chance to their opponents in the next competitions, then in our opinion they should be placed consequently lower in the ranking. This is how URPA is built. By competing, you get:

- points for any activity in a tournament, regardless of place

- extra points for places 1-6 (1^st place – 10 pts, 2^nd place – 7 pts, 3^rd place – 5 pts, 4^th place – 4 pts, 5^th

“Multiplier”, so event “quality”

Additionally, we consider the “multiplier”. If the tournament is of low “quality”, its multiplier is x1. So you get exactly as many points as stated above. If a competition is better prepared, on a higher level, there are rewards, it's prestigious, there's TV broadcasting, then the multiplier increases to x10. It means that 1^st place at a small event can get you 10 points, and a at big event it's 100 points. In this case, as you can see, if Athlete A participates in one big competition once a year and wins it, they get 100 points. But if Athlete B participates in 4 smaller events (with x3 multiplier), they will get 120 points (4 competitions with 10 points for 1^st place with x3 multiplier). The competitor that's higher in the ranking is Athlete B because they are more active.

Points in the ranking have an “expiry date” but this will be covered in the next episode. See you on Thursday.