2024 US Nationals Stunt Qualification Rounds Circle Seeding

[Howard Rush]

Here is circle seeding for the 2024 stunt Nats.  I did it using the same seeding formula that was used for previous stunt Nats.  The seeding formula is based on Open, Expert, and Advanced Nats placing for the last 10 years.  US team members not attending the Nats during a world champs year are included, ranked the same as Open Nats winners.  I attached a copy of the seeding spreadsheet.  I put the seeding into the Nats stunt tabulation program.  The tabulation program is too big to attach here, but I'll send it to anybody who wants it.  I encourage everybody to look at these spreadsheets and critique them.  Here are the top 30 seeds:

1 Orestes Hernandez
2 David Fitzgerald
3 Paul Walker
4 Derek Barry
5 Howard Rush
6 Kenny Stevens
7 Todd Lee
8 Joe Gilbert
9 Brett Buck
10 Joseph Daly
11 Robert McDonald
12 James Mills
13 Matthew Colan
14 Matt Neumann
15 Chris Rud
16 Michael Schmitt
17 Chris Cox
18 Michael McHenry
19 Bob Hunt
20 Crist Rigotti
21 Steven Daly
22 Bruce Jennings
23 Dan Banjock
24 Tom Luciano
25 Dennis Adamisin
26 William DeMauro
27 Steve Fitton
28 Richard Oliver
29 Vincent Bodde
30 Don Cranfill

For the top 20 in Open and Advanced for the last ten years, first place gets 20 points, second place gets 19, and so on.  US Team members who were out of town for the WC get 20 points each.  Scores get multiplied by 10 for 2023, 9 for 2022, and so on.  Advanced scores are then multiplied by .5.  Richard Huff's score includes both his Open and Advanced placings, for example.  I combined the Expert and Advanced placings for 2014.

Top score is seeded #1.  Guys who haven't placed in the top 20 in either Advanced or Open in the last ten years are unseeded.  Their assignment to one of the four groups for qualifying rounds is done by random draw.
 
The tabulation program tosses out seeds that are not entered at the current Nats and moves those who are entered up to fill in gaps.  For example, if Orestes doesn't show up for this year’s Nats, the tabulation program will bump everybody else up a notch. 

This seeding is only used to distribute contestants among circles for qualifying.  It might make the circles more uniform, but it has little effect on the outcome of the contest.  Seeding is not an indication of one's worth as a person, which is obvious for four cases above.  Here is a crude analysis I did on the effect of Nats qualification rounds seeding: http://stunthanger.com/smf/open-forum/nats-seeding/

Although seeding has little effect--none at all on the top handful of fliers-- using a formula published in advance removes any arbitrariness about circle assignment.

Oops, modified to update some dates.

[Crist Rigotti]

Thank you again Howard!