The 60, 40, 20, 10, 6, and 3 Points: How Speed Skating Mass Start Ranking is Calculated

In a traditional marathon or a Tour de France stage, the first athlete to cross the finish line wins, and the rest of the field is ranked sequentially by the time they arrive. Speed skating's mass start event borrows the chaotic, 24-athlete pack racing of those endurance sports, but it differs in one fundamental respect: it discards the stopwatch entirely in favor of a rigid, point-based ledger. Introduced to the Olympic program in 2018, the 16-lap race on a 400-meter oval is not decided by who skates the 6,400 meters the fastest. Instead, the final standings are dictated by a heavily weighted sprint-point system that mathematically separates the podium contenders from the tactical disruptors.[3]

The core of the mass start format is its dual-race structure. While the pack navigates the 16 laps, the International Skating Union (ISU) mandates three intermediate sprints—occurring at laps four, eight, and twelve. At each of these checkpoints, the first three skaters to cross the line earn three, two, and one point, respectively. But these intermediate skirmishes are merely a tactical sideshow compared to the final sprint at lap 16, where the stakes and the point values explode. The first six skaters to finish the race are awarded 60, 40, 20, 10, 6, and 3 points.[1]

This specific 60-40-20 allocation for the top three is the defining mathematical quirk of the event. Because the maximum number of intermediate points any single skater could theoretically accumulate is nine—by winning all three mid-race sprints—the 20 points awarded to the third-place finisher in the final sprint guarantees that the first three athletes across the final line will always sweep the podium. The ISU designed the system this way to ensure that the visual climax of the race matches the official result, preventing a scenario where a skater crosses the finish line fourth but steals a bronze medal on a technicality.[1][4]

However, the points system creates a fascinating tactical divergence for the rest of the 24-skater field. Because the podium is locked by the final sprint, athletes who know they lack the explosive closing speed to challenge for the top three must make a choice. They can either conserve energy and hope for a crash, or they can expend their reserves early to hunt intermediate sprint points. A skater who wins two intermediate sprints collects six points, which is often enough to secure a top-eight overall finish even if they roll across the final line dead last.[1][4]

This dynamic transforms the pacing behavior of the peloton. According to biomechanical research published by the National Institutes of Health, 'drafting during the race is a strategic and tactical social dilemma because all skaters want to hide behind others to save energy.' Because drafting behind another skater reduces aerodynamic drag by up to 23 percent, the pack often slows to a crawl during the non-sprint laps. No one wants to lead and absorb the wind resistance. The race becomes a series of violent accelerations followed by tactical lulls, demanding a psychobiological resilience that traditional time-trial speed skating does not require.[2]

The current point allocation is actually a mathematical refinement of the original rules. During the event's Olympic debut in PyeongChang and its return in Beijing, the intermediate sprints awarded five, three, and one point, while the final sprint only paid out to the top three. Under that older system, a skater could amass 15 intermediate points, creating mathematical edge cases in the middle of the standings. By reducing the intermediate payouts to 3-2-1 and expanding the final sprint points down to sixth place, the ISU effectively nerfed the breakaway strategy. Today, a skater who finishes fourth in the final sprint with 10 points is mathematically guaranteed to beat an athlete who sweeps every intermediate sprint.

For the athletes, the 60-40-20-10-6-3 system dictates roster construction and team strategy. Nations with two entrants frequently employ a 'rabbit'—a skater whose sole job is to attack early, force rival nations to expend energy chasing them down, and sweep up intermediate points to secure a respectable overall ranking for the federation. Meanwhile, the team's primary sprinter sits safely in the slipstream, hiding from the wind and saving their legs for the 60-point explosion on lap 16.

Ultimately, the mass start ranking system is an engineered compromise between the purity of a footrace and the entertainment value of a points classification. It ensures that the gold medal always goes to the skater who wins the final dash, while rewarding the aggressive, mid-race breakaways that keep the 16-lap event from devolving into a 15-lap procession. The numbers on the scoreboard are complex, but the mandate for the skaters remains brutally simple: hide in the draft, survive the chaos, and be in the top three when the bell rings for the final lap.[1][4]