The death this week of Mika Myllylä has got me thinking about the Finnish men of that era generally, which led to this graph: I’ve graphed FIS points here to include results at all levels. I’d forgotten about Isometsä’s attempts at a comeback after his suspension, which as you can see didn’t go all that [...] Related posts:
Doogiski over at NordicXplained has a good post up regarding the rivalry (such as it is) between Marit Bjørgen and Justyna Kowlaczyk. The issue between the fans of these two great skiers is the question of which one is better. Shocker, I know. Doogiski gives a good rundown of some of the limitations of comparing [...] Related posts:
You may have noticed that things have slowed down a bit here lately, which is natural with the season drawing to a close. I’m going to back off a bit with the posts and try to keep to just a Mon-Wed-Fri schedule during the off-season as best as I can. Some things I’m planning on [...] Related posts:
I promised a separate post on Leif Nordgren earlier, so here it goes. I don’t really have any fancy analysis to present, but here’s his results in major international competitions (WC, WBC and OWG): Obviously, the guy is young and this is his first season skiing on the WC circuit “full time” or mostly so. [...] Related posts:
Norwegian youngster Finn Haagen Krogh had an excellent weekend of racing at the World Cup Finals in Sweden recently. Here’s a look at his distance results (using FIS points) up to this point: He was having a pretty darn good season even before this last weekend, having moved his typical race down to (or just [...] Related posts:
Thanks to some help from Jan at WorldOfXC.com, I’ve been slowly gathering the split time data for World Cup races from this season. Analyzing them is tricky, though, for a variety of reasons. First, the data quality is poor. There are numerous instances where the live timing data is obviously wrong in a way that [...] Related posts:
And…..we’re done for the season! Related posts:Race Snapshot: IBU WC 4 Mass Start Race Snapshot: IBU WC 6 Men’s Mass Start Race Snapshot: IBU WC 6 Women’s Mass Start Related posts:
Another good day for the US women; nice job ladies! Related posts:Race Snapshot: IBU WC 1 Men/Women’s Pursuit Race Snapshot: IBU WC 2 Men’s Pursuit Race Snapshot: IBU WC 2 Women’s Pursuit Related posts:
Sorry for posting these so late in the day. I had a race, then drove home, etc. Related posts:Race Snapshot: IBU WC 1 Men/Women’s Pursuit Race Snapshot: IBU WC 2 Women’s Pursuit Race Snapshot: Rybinsk 10/20km Pursuit Related posts:
I’m on the road again for 50k number two of the season. Not looking forward to this one as much. The course doesn’t really excite me, and there are a ton of crazy fast runners here so it’ll be a miracle if the leaders haven’t flown home by the time I finish. Stupid fast people! [...] Related posts:
Yesterday’s biathlon WC sprint saw a mix of results for the Americans. First, things seem to have sort of reversed themselves from early in the season with Laura Spector struggling and the other ladies skiing quite well: An excellent race from Haley Johnson and Sara Studebaker, but a pretty dismal one for Spector, who shot [...] Related posts:
Sigh. Prologues. They count for FIS points. They count for World Cup points. And yet, somehow, I just don’t really care that much about them. Still, a race is a race, so here are the requisite snapshots: Related posts:Race Snapshot: TdS Prologue Race Snapshot: TdS Pursuit Race Snapshot: TdS Final Climb Related posts:
As far as I can tell, Magdalena Neuner leads all currently active female biathletes in victories in major international races. Granted, she’s been racing longer than many of the current top women, but still. (Update: As pointed out to me in the comments, that isn’t exactly the case. All I meant to say was that [...] Related posts:
Great races from Sara Studebaker and Haley Johnson today. A decent race from Tim Burke, probably undone by those two missing last time through the range. You’ll note that Tarjei Bø was back in 44th with 5 missed shots; that’s biathlon for you! Related posts:Race Snapshot: IBU World Cup 1 Women Race Snapshot: IBU WC [...] Related posts:
There were loads of problems with the heat times for this race, so I only have partial data. The men’s times were totally messed up and unusable, so I’ll only have graphs for the women. Here are the women’s finalists: I actually made up a time for Visnar’s final round heat, since the live timing [...] Related posts:
So how did the North Americans do at World Biathlon Championships this year? There definitely some strong results, but here’s some context: These are the Canadian and American biathlon performances at WBCs and OWGs measured by standardized percent behind the median skier. The blue line tracks the median over time. The Canadian men had some [...] Related posts:
A solid race from Andrew Newell, and a decent one for Kikkan Randall given that it’s a classic race. And that’s it for the sprint races for the year… Related posts:Race Snapshot: Davos WC Sprint Mid-Season Review: North American Sprint Race Snapshot: TdS Classic Sprint Related posts:
A common refrain by now, but it was a mixed weekend for the North Americans. In an unusual twist, the distance race may have held better results than the sprint. Here are the men from the pursuit: Babikov had a pretty strong race, but everyone else had days that were mediocre or just not great. [...] Related posts:
There was a distance race this past weekend as well, of course, and in a slightly unusual format. I’m not sure why FIS includes these 10/20km pursuits; I can’t think of what the rationale is at all. In any case, here’s a look at the top men’s performances which included some slightly different names (click [...] Related posts:
As always, the sprint heat times are thanks to Jan at WorldOfXC.com. I was travelling yesterday, so not only did I not watch these races, I haven’t even really read about them yet either. So this will be an interesting guessing game for me, to see how much I can infer from just the the [...] Related posts: