Eureka!

Ok, it took a while, but I think I finally “get it” as to how the Canadian Fly Fishing Championships determines medal winners and placement in the competition.  It seems unintuitive – and check this rule out for yourself:

31.1     The positions of teams and individuals will be determined as follows: 

(a)     Teams:  The first position will be awarded to the team with the lowest cumulative number of placings of all its team members, and similarly for all other positions. 

(b)     Individuals:  The first position will be awarded to the individual with the lowest cumulative number of placings, and similarly for all other positions.

~ From The Rules

So in other words, the fact that John Beaven scored more points overall than the eventual first place medalist, because his total sum of rankings over the course of the competition was less, he got second place.  So even though total cumulative points are included in the official results, the total points have little to do with the placement at the end of the competition.

Which actually changes things for me personally, although officially, I don’t really care.  For on the first day, whoever was doing the recording of the day’s fishing mixed up session two with session one in my case.

This meant that instead of ranking 8th in session two, I actually ranked 6th.  That means my “sum of rankings” was 37, not 39.  Which means, dear Dil Perera, you still, even though unofficially, have the priviledge of finishing last – with me right behind you :).

But who knows how many other mistakes there might be?  I suppose I could have had the mistake corrected during the competition.  But at that point, I was under the impression that it was all about total points accumulated.  A correction wouldn’t do anything about my team placement either – it moves us up two points, but doesn’t change the team rankings.

Man, this stuff gets complicated!  I like the simpler parts of fly fishing, I think.