Division performance at U.S. national championships (2021–2025) — who gets invited vs. who performs.
Percentage of Nationals field from each division, by year. 2026* is a pro-forma projection using MNRL List 5.
* 2026 pro-forma assumes NorAm spots (WC athletes excluded), top 30 by MNRL ranking, and 10 divisional quota spots. See Quota Analysis for details.
Projected roster (WC excluded): 16 NorAm + 30 MNRL + 10 divisional quota. Outer = division, inner = selection group.
Top-half finish rate and avg finish percentile vs invite share. 50% line = expected if evenly distributed.
Lower is better. Reference line shows overall average across all divisions.
Box = IQR (25th–75th percentile), line = median, whiskers = 1.5×IQR. Each dot is one athlete-event result.
Projected roster matching the Invite Share 2026* bar and Pro-Forma donut above.
Invite Share is the percentage of the Nationals field that each division represents. Because fixed podium points inflate rankings in smaller divisions, we expect those divisions to be over-represented relative to their depth.
Performance Index = Top-Half Rate − 50%. If placement were evenly distributed, exactly 50% of each division's athletes would finish in the top half of the field. A positive index means the division outperforms this expectation; negative means they underperform. A deep division like Rocky earning a positive index despite fewer invites is evidence they deserve more spots.
Top-Half Rate is the percentage of a division's athletes that finish in the top 50% of the field in each event. Avg Finish Percentile is the mean percentile across all individual results (100% = 1st place, 0% = last). Both should be ~50% if performance is evenly distributed.
NorAm Filter removes athletes who compete at the NorAm (North American Cup) level. These athletes have a direct pathway to Nationals independent of the MNRL, so removing them isolates the MNRL-pathway athletes where ranking bias matters most.
Score availability varies by year. Some earlier events may not have scores in the database.