Appearance
Knock-out competitions
Audience: Event organisers and timing operators running a knock-out sprint, or any competition where each round's field is decided by the results of the round before.
A knock-out competition runs as a sequence of rounds — a Qualification, then Quarter Finals, Semi Finals and Finals. Competitors enter once, into the first round. Every later round's field is worked out from the results of the one before and written in for you.
Manager models it as a multi-stage event of a particular kind. Each round is an ordinary meshO Manager event with its own classes, courses, start times and downloads; the container above them holds the ladder and the rules for getting from one round to the next.
Do I need to learn a new kind of event? No. A round is an ordinary event and runs exactly as one. What is new is the Bracket screen you drive the competition from, and the Advance button that fills the next round.
The vocabulary
| Term | What it means |
|---|---|
| Knock-out competition | The whole thing. Appears as one row on the Events page, with its rounds nested underneath. |
| Round | One phase — Qualification, Quarter Finals, Finals. A round is one event, run one at a time. |
| Heat | One simultaneously-run group within a round. A heat is one class in that round's event, with its own course and its own mass start. |
| Class | One progression, typically one per gender — the men's and the women's, each running its own rounds through the shared round events. On screen this is simply called a class, and its key (M, W) is what appears in heat class names: key M gives you M QF1. Elsewhere the same idea is called a bracket or a ladder; the Bracket tab is the screen that draws them. |
| Advancement | Working out a round's field from the results of an earlier round, and writing the entries in. |
| Lucky loser | Somebody who advances on their time across all heats rather than on their place within one. |
| Classification | The overall result of a class: how far each competitor got, then where they finished in that round. |
The men's and women's Quarter Finals are two rounds sharing one event — they run at the same time, in the same forest, off the same download station.
Setting one up
1. Create the competition
Click New event on the Events page — and, if you have Eventor configured, Create manually… — then choose Multi-stage and Knock-out on that card. Beyond the name and date above the cards, that is the only question it asks — a knock-out declares no stages here, since its rounds are created for you in the next step. Click Create; Manager first notes that multi-stage events are experimental — check a knock-out carefully before you publish anything from it — and after Continue it opens on its Rounds tab.
The kind is fixed when the competition is created. A carnival cannot be turned into a knock-out afterwards, or the other way round: the two are decided completely differently, and switching would either discard the structure or leave stages with nothing advancing between them. If you picked the wrong one, delete the container — its events are kept — and create another.
2. Generate the structure
A new knock-out opens on the Rounds tab, which is empty and says so: "This competition has no classes yet. Create one to begin." Click Create to open the generator, Generate a knock-out competition.
| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| Competition shape | IOF knock-out sprint (Qualification → Quarter finals → Semi finals → Finals, with a B final), Qualification and final, or Empty — build by hand. |
| First round | The date. Every round defaults to the same day; change a round's date afterwards if you are splitting across two. |
| Class | One row per progression. Two by default — M / Men and W / Women, each with a Key ("used in class names") and a Name. Add a class for more. |
| Rounds | Per round: its Round name, a Short label, how many Heats, Max per heat (0 means no limit), and whether it has a Consolation final. Add a round and the remove button change the list. |
Click Preview. Under What will be created you see exactly what is coming — how many rounds, events and heat classes, with each round's date and heats listed. Back to adjust, Create to commit.
Manager creates one event per round, and one class per heat inside it, and writes the structure. If what it made differs from what the preview promised, it says so — check the Rounds tab before running the competition.
The generator is offered only while the competition has no classes. Afterwards the Rounds tab is where you edit the structure by hand — round names, heats (Add a heat), capacities, and removing a heat or a whole class. Save and Cancel appear once you have unsaved changes; nothing is written until you save, and the structure is checked when you do — anything that doesn't fit together is listed rather than saved.
The numbers are defaults, not rules. They come from a template and are yours to edit. Check them against the current competition rules before running a real competition — they could not be verified against the IOF rulebook when this was written.
3. Set up each round's event
Each round event now needs what any event needs — courses drawn and attached to its heat classes, and a mass start time on each heat, since knock-out heats start together. Open a round from the Bracket screen and set it up as usual.
Adding and removing rounds
The generator lays out the whole ladder, but it is not the last word. Under each class on the Rounds tab:
- Add a round appends one to the end, and creates the stage and the event it runs in. It arrives advancing the top 3 of each heat from the round before it, with one heat — change both to suit. Because adding writes straight away, it is unavailable while you have unsaved changes ("Save your changes first.").
- The × beside a round removes it. Any later round that advanced from it loses that rule, and if you remove the first round the one that follows becomes an entered round. The round's event is left alone — it may already hold entries and results. Delete it from the Stages tab if that is really what you want.
How the heats of a round are ranked
Lucky losers, overall place ranges and the final classification all need the heats of a round ranked against each other. That is one setting for the competition, at the top of the Rounds tab, and one per round underneath if a round needs something different:
| Method | What it does |
|---|---|
| Heat place, then time behind | All heat winners first, then all runners-up, and so on; within each group by time behind their own heat winner. The default, and the only one that stays fair when the heats run different courses. |
| Time behind the heat winner | Purely by the gap to their own heat winner, ignoring place. |
| Raw time | Straight comparison of times. Only correct when every heat of the round ran the same course — Manager warns you when you pick it, because it cannot tell whether they did. |
| Ex aequo (shared places) | Everyone on the same heat place shares a rank, and the next rank skips accordingly: six quarter-final winners are all 1st, and the next rank is 7th. |
| Custom formula | Your own expression, in the same language as a custom scoring method. Higher scores rank first. |
The setting at the top is Rank the heats by, used by every round that does not choose its own. A round set to Competition default follows it, and the dropdown says which method that is. Custom formula adds a Ranking formula field.
Each advancement rule (below) also has a Ranked by of its own, which almost always says The round's. Change it only where the round's own ranking cannot decide a selection — and in practice that means ex aequo. Ex aequo gives every heat winner the same rank on purpose, which is what you want published, but it leaves all six third-placed runners sharing one rank too. Ask for two lucky losers out of that and there is nothing to choose between them, so the rule falls back to heat order and takes the wrong two. Set that rule's Ranked by to Time behind the heat winner and it picks the two who were genuinely closest, while the round still publishes ex aequo.
Who advances: the advancement rules
Every round but the first has an Advancement section on the Rounds tab; the first says "The first round is entered from an entry list, not advanced from another round." A round with no rule can't be advanced into. The rules are rows — Add a rule for another — and they apply in order: each one only sees the competitors the ones above it did not take.
| Column | What it sets |
|---|---|
| From round | Which earlier round the competitors come from. |
| Who | Top of heat (the best N of each heat), Lucky loser (the best N of those left, across all heats), Overall place (a range of places, From place to To place, across the round), Remaining (everyone not yet taken — fills a consolation heat), Whole field (everyone, ranked or not), or By hand (nobody automatically; you place each one from the preview). |
| How many | N for the selectors that take a number; Everyone chosen for the rest. |
| Ranked by | Normally The round's ranking — see above. |
| Into heats | Which of this round's heats the rule fills; As above uses the setting for the whole round. This is how "top three to the A final, everyone else to the B final" is one round with two rules. |
Above the rules, three settings for the round as a whole:
- Seeding — how the chosen field is spread across the heats: Snake (the IOF distribution: 1st to heat 1, 2nd to heat 2 … and back again), By rank (fill heat 1, then heat 2), Keep the heat, Random or By hand.
- Start order — the order within each heat: By rank, Random, or Keep the bib order.
- Into heats — which heats the round's rules fill by default; blank means every heat.
A round event's class list groups its heats. Six quarter-final heats across two classes is twelve classes in one event, so the class list carries a Round column and gathers them under headings like Men — Quarter Finals. The grouping comes from the competition's structure, not from the names, so it holds whatever you call the heats and whatever sort order you have set. Classes that are not heats keep their own order, after the heats.
4. Enter the field
Enter or import competitors into the first round's event only, into its heat classes. Every later round is filled by advancement, not by you.
Re-importing is safe. An entry list imported into a round event never deletes somebody who was advanced into it, whatever the import's settings — even though they are not in the file.
The five tabs
| Tab | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Bracket | The ladder, and the screen you work from during the competition. Rounds left to right, heats as cards, with Advance and Open on each round. |
| Rounds | The structure — classes, rounds, heats, capacities, how the heats are ranked, and the rules that decide who advances. Where you generate it and where you edit it afterwards. |
| Classification | The overall result, and where you download it. |
| Stages | The same stage list a carnival has: rename the competition, see each round's event and date, create or attach an event, copy entries. Rarely needed once the generator has run, but this is where the competition's Name field lives. |
| History | What has been done to this competition and why — every advancement, every jury decision, and the reason given for it. |
Once the structure exists, the competition opens on Bracket; before then, on Rounds.
Running the competition
The Bracket tab is the screen to work from. Rounds run left to right; each shows its state, its heats, and an Advance button.
One round at a time
Rounds run in sequence: finish Qualification, then move to Quarter Finals.
Anything running alongside a round — a public course, a come-and-try — must be classes in that round's own event. It is not part of any progression, advancement ignores it, and it never appears in the classification. The Rounds tab names them under the round they share an event with — "Also in this event: Come and try, Public Short" — because which one it is decides whether you have a problem.
A concurrent race that outlasts its round keeps its round's event live after the next round starts, and two events are then live at once — see Two events live at once. Its downloads are read at the desk of its own round's event.
Advancing a round
When a round is finished, press Advance on the next round's card — the one you are filling, not the one you are reading from. (The first round of each class has no button; it says Entered, not advanced.) You get a preview, Advance into … the round, headed "Nothing is written until you apply. Each row says which rule chose the competitor." If the round it reads from has no results yet, it says nobody can be advanced.
The preview shows the whole field of the round you are advancing from:
- Grouped by the heat they are going into, in start order, with each heat's fill shown as 3 of 6 (Not yet placed for anyone chosen but not yet given a heat).
- Not advancing below, in the order they came closest.
- Columns for From, Heat place, Rank, Order and Chosen by — Top of heat, Lucky loser, Overall place, Remaining, Whole field, By hand — so you can see why each person is where they are.
Check it — Refresh rebuilds it if results have changed while it was open — then Advance N competitors. The entries are written into the round's heat classes, carrying each person's name, club and card, but none of their previous result — they have not run this round yet. Manager reports what it did: "X added, Y moved, Z unchanged."
Pressing Advance twice is safe. A second run over unchanged results creates nothing and moves nobody. If you correct a result in an earlier round and advance again, only what actually changed is rewritten.
Somebody who has already run the round and is no longer selected is never removed. They are reported — "N left alone: they have already run this round." — for you to sort out, because deleting a result cannot be undone.
Jury decisions
Every row of the preview has a menu. Use it when a jury decision overrides the rules.
Letting extra people through. If there has been a mix-up and the organiser decides two more should go through, find each of them in the Not advancing half of the preview and Promote them. Promoting adds to the field: a final of three becomes a final of five, and nobody who qualified on merit is pushed out. If that takes a heat past the capacity you set, the heat's count turns amber — a warning, never a block.
| Decision | What it does |
|---|---|
| Promote into a heat | They advance although no rule chose them, and the field grows — nobody who qualified loses their place. Pick the heat they go into. |
| Demote | They do not advance although a rule chose them. The place they free is taken by the next-ranked competitor, not left empty. |
| Move to another heat | They still advance, but into the heat you name rather than the seeded one. |
| Exclude from here on | They leave the competition from this round onwards. |
Every decision needs a Reason — the Record button stays disabled until you give one — and it is stored with the decision. Decisions are kept on the competition, so re-running the advancement does not undo them, and re-importing the entry list does not either. Rows carrying one are marked Promoted, Demoted, Placed or Excluded in the preview.
The reasons are on the History tab. Every decision, every advancement and every structure change is listed there with its time and the reason given, so what was decided at 15:40 can be reconstructed afterwards.
The classification
The Classification tab is the overall result of each class:
- How far they got. Everybody who ran the Final is above everybody whose last round was the Semi Finals — including a finalist who mispunched the final. They got to the final, and that is what the competition decided about them.
- Where they finished in that round. Within the Finals, the A final takes the first places and the B final the ones after, however fast the B final was run.
- Anybody who never started is listed at the foot, unranked.
The table has Place, Competitor and Club, then one column per round showing the place they took in their heat. Where a round did not take somebody further, a footnote says so: "This round did not take them any further", or "Removed from the competition from this round onwards" for somebody excluded. A classification computed while rounds are still to run is marked Provisional.
The classification is derived — there is nothing to edit here. Correct the round, and the classification follows.
It follows the results. An open Classification tab updates as downloads come in, so you can leave it up on a second screen through the Final.
Downloading it
Export CSV, at the top of the tab, downloads every class's classification as a spreadsheet: one row per competitor with their overall place, then one column per round — headed with the round's name — holding the place they took in that round's heat. A round a jury decision voided is shown in brackets.
There is no total and no total time in it, because a knock-out has neither: the rounds are run on different courses, so their times do not add up to anything, and adding them would rank a fast B final above the A final. What the competition decided is the order, and the order is what the file carries.
CSV is the only export of the classification — there is no PDF, no IOF XML and no screen source for it. Each round's own results export normally, as any event's do.
Correcting things
A result was wrong in an earlier round. Open that round's event and fix it as you would any event's result — you do not have to stop the round that is running now; only downloads are tied to the live event, not editing. Then open the later round and press Advance again.
Manager tells you when this matters. A round drawn from results that have since changed is marked on both the Bracket tab and, as a chip (Sources changed — still adjustable or Sources changed — round started), on the Rounds tab:
- "The results this field was drawn from have changed. This round has not started, so you can still advance it again." — press Advance on that round and check the preview.
- "…but this round has started." — the window has closed. Correct the entries in the round's own event instead; re-advancing at this point would mostly report conflicts, because nobody who has already run is ever removed.
It never re-draws a round by itself. The mark is a prompt; you decide.
A photo finish. Two competitors on exactly the same time share a place unless a judge separates them. Open either one, go to the Result tab of the Edit Competitor dialog, and set the judged order over the tied group. It is only ever consulted for exactly equal times, so it can never promote somebody who was slower.
A penalty, or a time correction. The Overrides tab of the Edit Competitor dialog lists Race time under the start and finish punches: press Override, enter the adjustment in seconds — positive for a penalty, negative to credit time back — and give a reason, which is required. The dialog shows the race time your seconds produce as you type. The adjusted time is what the competitor is ranked, exported and advanced on; the raw clock time is kept beside it, and the Result tab shows both.
Not yet supported
- Head-to-head pairing ladders — tennis-style brackets where named competitors meet one another. A knock-out sprint is heats, not pairings.
- Team or relay knock-outs.
- Chasing starts within a knock-out — heats mass-start, so there is nothing to chase.
- Two rounds ingesting downloads at once. Rounds run in sequence.
- Putting the classification on a screen, or exporting it as PDF or IOF XML. CSV is the only export — see Downloading it.
Common mistakes
- The next round is empty. You have not pressed Advance on it yet, or the round it reads from has no results.
- A heat has nobody in it. Check the preview's Chosen by column — the rule may be taking fewer competitors than there are heats to fill.
- A public runner's download is rejected. Their race is in a round event that is no longer the live one. Concurrent races have to sit inside a single round's window.
- Advancing removed somebody unexpectedly. They were selected before and are not now, because a result changed. If they had already run, they were kept and reported as a conflict instead.
- A jury decision seems to have been undone. It has not been — decisions survive re-runs. Check you recorded it against the right round.
- The classification puts a mispunching finalist above a semi-finalist. That is correct: how far you got comes first.
Related
- Multi-stage events — the container this builds on, and carnivals scored by adding stages up
- Creating an event — the New event dialog
- Classes and courses — setting up each round's heats
- Start times — mass starts for heats
- Results and Exporting data
- Status and race time rules — the statuses behind who can advance