You Can Relax Now: Your Points Won't Change

Did you know that FIS recently changed the way that your points are calculated from season-to-season?  Me neither.  It's true.  Jeff Weinmann, the rules guru at USSA, recently enlightened everybody:

Many of you many not know that FIS changed the way that FIS points are calculated this past Spring.

Like USSA, FIS results are now used in points calculations only during the season in which they were earned - it is no longer on a rolling 14 month calendar. FIS now calculates Base List (BL) points, much like the USSA Fall list (which is really a Summer list now).

Again, like USSA, BL points are valid the entire season until an athlete earns a better average of two individual results. If an athlete has one result that is better than the BL and one that is higher, if the average of those two results is higher than the BL points, the BL points remain. An important distinction is that a result does not have to be better than your BL points to be considered a result.

The only time that a single result will be averaged with BL points is if that single result is lower than the BL points and there are no other results during the season that could be averaged.

A few examples:

An athlete with BL points of 123.45 gets a result of 89.01 and has no other results at all in the season in that discipline higher or lower than the BL points - the average of the BL and that one result make up the new seed points of 106.23.

If that same athlete with BL points of 123.45 and the one result of 89.01 had a second result that was higher than 157.89 (resulting in an average higher than the BL points) the BL points would be the current points.

If that same athlete with BL points of 123.45 and the one result of 89.01 had a second result that was lower than 157.89 (resulting in an average lower than the BL points) that new average would be the current points.

The applicable section of the FIS Rules of the Points is attached for your review.

So there it is.  You can now go an entire season without scoring, and the clock will not be ticking... until the start of the next season.  So go ahead, DNF.  Or hike and score a 700.  Either way, you're good.


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