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Abstract

This project proposes a computational game theory analysis focused on addressing the challenge of ranking athletes in sports settings where direct pairwise comparisons may be unavailable, with a particular emphasis on sports like Ironman, Triathlon, and Marathon. Given the inherent difficulty of arranging head-to-head competitions among top athletes in such endurance sports, the project seeks to analyze the shortcomings of existing methodologies as well as develop and assess novel ranking systems using insights from computational game theory. The first step in this project will first involve establishing a concrete model and set of assumptions that mirror this real-world problem. Using this model, the project then aims to both theoretically and empirically analyze the current methodology behind the ranking systems being used today. Ultimately, the goal is to provide a provably fair ranking system for such competitions, either based on extensions of existing systems or through a novel ranking concept.