Age Grading

What is age grading?

Age grading is a way to adjust an athlete’s performance according to age and gender.

The age-grading tables were developed by the World Association of Veteran Athletes, the world governing body for track and field, long distance running and race walking for veteran athletes.

The tables work by recording the world record performance for each age at each distance, for men and women.

For example, the world record for a 53 year old woman running a 10km is 35:01. So if a 53 year old woman finishes a 10km in 45:18, she has an age-graded performance of 77.3% (which is 35:01 divided by 45:18).

The wide availability of age-grading tables has allowed older runners to compete on even terms with younger generations.

In many running clubs today, the age-graded champion earns as much, if not more, recognition as the outright (non-age adjusted) winner of the event.

NB: BRRC uses your age as at the first of January each year to determine which age category you compete in for the entire year.

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Age Grading: how it works

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Age grading uses tables of "age factors" and "age standards" to put all runners, regardless of age and sex on a level playing field.

In particular, they allow runners' performances, no matter what their age, to be corrected to what they would have been achieving in their prime years, and permit valid comparisons to be made between people of different ages.
 
       >100% = World record level
       > 90% = World class
       > 80% = National class 
       > 70% = Regional class
       >  0% = An Athlete

Click here to check out your age-graded performance
 

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