Originally introduced in 2023 by Waris Radji and Mathieu Adoin, the RIS Score was a true game changer for the sport of streetlifting [1]. We are excited to finally announce the updated RIS Score for 2026. In this article, we introduce the RIS Score in detail and explain what’s new in the latest update.
What is the RIS Score?
RIS stands for Relative Index for Streetlifting and allows athletes to be compared across different weight classes within the same gender. The scoring system normalizes strength performance using comprehensive data from elite competitors. Its annual updates reflect the evolving performance standards of the sport.
>> RIS provides a fair and transparent benchmark for athletes, coaches, and competition organizers worldwide. <<
How do we apply the RIS Score?
The RIS Score enables comparability in streetlifting, regardless of an athlete’s bodyweight. Shortly after the initial publication of the RIS, we got in contact with Waris to begin integrating the system into our competition platform. In 2024, the RIS formula became the official FinalRep competition standard.
Since then, every athlete’s competition total has been accompanied by a RIS Score. You can find this score at each event, on athlete profiles, and in the rankings within our app.
One of the biggest innovations enabled by the RIS Score was our “Underground” format. This weight-class-free streetlifting event format compares athletes exclusively using the RIS Score. Compared to traditional weight-class-based events, Underground competitions allow for smaller, shorter events with just a few athletes. This makes them an excellent entry point for building strong local streetlifting communities.
What's new in the 2026 version?
Since the RIS is a data-driven scoring system, increasing the amount of available data significantly improves its accuracy. While the 2023 RIS was based primarily on data from WORLDS 23 and a selection of earlier top-level events, the RIS 2026 update additionally includes competition results from both the 2024 and 2025 seasons.
This expanded dataset allows for improved comparability between athletes—particularly due to stronger female datasets—and better reflects the continually rising performance level of our growing community. Plus, the algorithm is now open-source so that others can use their own datasets to perform logistic curve fitting for different disciplines (more information below).
You can access the RIS Calculator and other features via the FinalRep App (see picture below)
Deep dive into RI-X Scores
The algorithm behind the RIS Score is based on logistic curve fitting. Thanks to Waris, who provided the original Python prototype, we were able to fully integrate this algorithm into our app.
Here is a simplified overview of how it works:
We use datasets collected through our app and apply an 80th-percentile filter. This means we select the top 20% of athletes from each dataset. This subset is then used to fit a logistic curve using the Nelder–Mead optimization method. The curve’s parameters are optimized until the distance to all data points is minimized.
When calculating RIS Scores, the logistic curve with the derived parameters is used to compute the final RIS value based on an athlete’s total and bodyweight.
Because this approach is fully data-driven, it can be applied to many other strength sports. For this reason, we decided to open-source the algorithm so that others can use their own datasets to perform logistic curve fitting for different disciplines [2].
RIS represents just one application of a broader concept: a family of sport-specific Relative Indexes we call RI-X.
The future of RIS and RI-X Scores
We are currently experimenting with discipline-specific fittings for single lifts and the classic two-lift format. In addition, we are working on a scientific paper together with Waris to compare the RIS Score with other established strength scoring systems such as Wilks [3], DOTS [4], and IPF GL [5].
As part of this work, we may also introduce the Relative Index for Powerlifting – RIP as a direct comparison to existing powerlifting scoring systems, leveraging many years of historical competition data [6].
Finally we want to thank Waris and Mathieu (FNSL) for their creation of the RIS and their collaboration with us (namely Carsten Seeger) to further develop the RIS.
We hope this article have provided you interesting insights into this project.
With sincere regards,
–– Your FinalRep Team 
References
[1] Waris Radji’s original website for the Relative Index for Streetlifting
https://warisradji.com/ris/
[2] Go implementation of the logistic curve fitting used to create the RIS Score
https://github.com/finalrep/ris-go
[3] Wilks coefficient
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilks_coefficient
[4] DOTS relative scoring
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/DOTS-Relativwertung
[5] IPF Points Calculator
https://www.ipfpointscalculator.com/
[6] IPF Formula Models Evaluation (2020)
https://www.powerlifting.sport/fileadmin/ipf/data/ipf-formula/Models_Evaluation-I-2020.pdf
