Points and Status

Everything you need to know about personal and crew ranking points and event statuses

Ranking Points

All racing members of British Rowing have a Personal Ranking Index (PRI), made up of Ranking Points. This replaces the old status points system and points are no longer allocated in this way. If you are new to rowing, or you are not quite sure about how the Competition Framework works or how you gain Ranking Points you can find more information here.

Personal Ranking Index

Rowers get points for racing and beating crews. The higher up you finish in an event, and the more crews you beat, the more Ranking Points you’ll get. The maximum number of points you can get in an event is 145. Competition organisers pass this information to British Rowing, which updates members’ records.

Ranking Points are awarded for heads and regattas and for sweep and sculling, coxes are also awarded Ranking Points depending on how well their crew does.

A competitor’s Personal Ranking Index (PRI) is the sum of Ranking Points of your eight highest-scoring events after allowing for how long ago they were awarded. If you haven’t raced eight competitions a ‘PRI Max’ is calculated. This is calculated based on the Ranking Points for the events that you have entered, with the average multiplied up to the equivalent of eight events.

You can view your Personal Ranking Index by logging into your British Rowing online membership account.

Event Banding

Status levels have been replaced and the Competition Framework is flexible, allowing competitions to use Ranking Points and the Personal Ranking Index to decide how they want to band crews for racing. At the request of competition organisers, the Framework was designed to give them as much flexibility as possible in how they group competitors together, to help create closer, fairer and more exciting racing for the majority of rowers, and to increase the likelihood of crews getting a race. (If you want to race in a higher band to push yourself, you can do so at the discretion of the competition organisers).

Main Classes of Events

Events may be held under the following classes:

  • Senior – including Lightweight and U23
  • Junior
  • Masters

and in each of these classes, Open (regardless of sex), Women and Mixed, and in either discipline (sweep-oared or sculling).

Qualifying Events

A qualifying event is one whose result may affect the Personal Ranking of a Competitor (e.g. by gaining ranking points).

An event is qualifying when there has been at least one race in which a minimum of two crews have been placed. In general, all competitions are classed as qualifying and the British Rowing Rules of Racing cover this in much greater detail.

Non-qualifying events

The following are non-qualifying events:

  • Events where special conditions apply and permission has been granted by the National Competition Committee
  • A private match arranged solely between the clubs or competitors concerned
  • Open only to members of one club, or solely to the clubs of one university or other self-contained body
  • Races limited to Adaptive competitors
  • A fun event generated on the day among existing competitors
  • Events held in recreational boats, or limited to competitors J13or younger, than J14, or handicap (other than Masters or relay races)
  • Events where competitors are allocated to crews on the day by the organisers

Senior Class

Senior rowing is open to all registered competitors, whatever their sex, weight or age.

Senior racing may be subdivided into bands based on the PRI’s of the crews. This is done after entries have closed.

Alternatively competitions may set specific entry criteria for events EG academic eights.

Scottish/Coastal/Overseas

British Rowing does its best to provide its affiliated competitions with up-to-date and accurate information

Competitors from Associations other than British Rowing who are not members of Brritish Rowing might have a Personal Ranking Index (PRI) that does not fully reflect their ability as the records this relates to are limited to British Rowing affiliated competitions and overseas representation for Great Britain. Such crews are advised to provide the competition with details of their racing history with the understanding that their governing body may be contacted. This is to ensure that the competitors/crews are entered into an appropriate event for their experience and crew record.

Points Conversion

There is no conversion of Ranking Points of status points systems used by other rowing organisations/associations.

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