Yesterday’s post sparked a little bit of discussion about how to measure the “best” performances. That wasn’t what I really intended, I was just trying to give a sense for some of the most extreme performances, relative to the median skier. No matter what you do, events will conspire to put some “weird” races on [...] Related posts:
As measured by standardized percent back from the median skier, anyway. I mentioned in my recap from the other day that Matti Heikkinen’s race was one of the best ever, in terms of how far he out-paced the field. I actually got the count slightly wrong, since I was counting visually on my computer screen, [...] Related posts:
Once again nothing spectacular from the North Americans, but nothing truly horrible either. Here are the Americans: That’s a pretty average race for Freeman. His best efforts this season have been just above -2, which would likely have just put him in the top ten today, and I mean that literally: he would have been [...] Related posts:
It’s days like this that I point to when people ask if I can use all my skiing data to predict race results. The simple truth is that nothing does a great job of predicting ski racing results beyond the level of common sense, because you get days like this on a fairly regular basis. [...] Related posts:
I noticed an interesting tidbit in a FasterSkier article the other day previewing today’s men’s 15km classic race. Towards the end, it mentioned that “Bauer also often does better in his first event in a major event.” Obviously, Bauer had a pretty bad race today, his first of the event, but that doesn’t mean he [...] Related posts:
Another strong day for the Finns; lots of big names way down the results sheet today. Sounds like there may have been some waxing issues at play for some of them. Related posts:Race Snapshot: TdS Classic Sprint Race Snapshot: Drammen 10/15km Classic Drammen 10/15km Classic Recap Related posts:
Another race, another win for Marit Bjørgen, although Justyna Kowalczyk certainly came pretty close this time. And a dominant showing by the Norwegian and Finnish women in general, as they made up 8 of the top 10. Here’s some perspective on the performances by the top six women (click through for full version): This measure [...] Related posts:
Ok, now we can talk about how the North Americans fared this weekend. Once again with the very large graphs, starting with the women: Not a ton of racing experience at this level in this group, obviously. It’s tempting to focus on the fact that Stephen, Brooks and Diggins were all in the top thirty, [...] Related posts:
Just to follow up from my previous post, here’s a look at a few other women who had particularly good or bad days on Saturday: I suspected that Nicole Fessel would have some strong races this week and this was certainly a good one. There were just too many people who skied faster. After a [...] Related posts:
It sounds like Kowalczyk actually made it interesting this time around, although I have to say that while Bjørgen is impressive, this might actually get boring after a while. Or maybe Bjør-ing? Anyway, it’s nice to see Lahteenmaki get a strong result in at World Championships after having so many good races this season. And [...] Related posts:
After some wild racing this weekend, let’s take a step back and look at some of the top and notable performances again more closely. Starting with the women, here’s a graph showing the top six finishers in Saturday’s 15km pursuit (click through for full version): People keep pestering me about making my graphs bigger; so [...] Related posts:
Wow, what a crazy race! If the mass start events trend toward this kind of stuff, with lots of attacking, I think that’ll only be a good thing for the sport. As it was, the all that action may have turned the results a bit inside out from what people were expecting. I’ll have a [...] Related posts:
Once again we have some potentially misleading FIS points, as Bjørgen, Kowalczyk and Johaug skied away from the field a bit. I’ll have a closer look at the results that adjust for this on Monday. It was mostly the usual suspects at the top, but what a race for Maria Rydqvist, though! Related posts:Race Snapshot: [...] Related posts:Race Snapshot: IBU WC 2 Women’s Pursuit Race Snapshot: TdS Pursuit Race Snapshot: TdS Continuous Pursuit
With World Championships finally underway in Oslo, things are getting busy again. Here’s what’s been cooking this past week: We had the final World Cup races before WSCs in Drammen; so we had race snapshots for the distance and sprint races, and then the requisite recaps as well. I pulled together a few quick graphs [...] Related posts:
Just a quick note (no graphs) with some historical perspective on the Swedish men’s performance in yesterday’s sprint race. It was somewhat of a surprise seeing Marcus Hellner win, and indeed the Swedes put three (Hellner, Jönsson and Modin) all in the top 5. As far as I can tell, the last time the Swedish [...] Related posts:
The day after the race may seem early to start doing serious evaluations, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at different nations’ performances in championship sprint races over time, to put yesterday’s race in some context. I’ve taken the sprint results from Olympic and World Championship races since 2001 (which, [...] Related posts:
Check yesterday’s post for graphs focusing on the North Americans. But for the moment let’s focus on the rest of the race, starting with the men’s finalists: Sprint times again provided by Jan at WorldOfX.com. The times kind of bounced around in this race. Normally the men’s qualification round is somewhat faster than this, relative [...] Related posts:
This is just a quick update with some graphs of the North American’s heat times (data provided via Jan at WorldOfXC.com). I’ll have my usual sprint race recap up tomorrow. Obviously, it was a pretty disappointing day for the North Americans, since Kikkan Randall had some big expectations behind her. But sprint racing is risky, [...] Related posts:
Wow, what a bummer of a day for Kikkan! But that’s sprint racing; everyone who makes it to the finals relies on at least a little bit of luck. Related posts:Race Snapshot: Davos WC Sprint Tour de Ski Freestyle Sprint Recap Race Snapshot: Liberec Freestyle Sprint Related posts:Race Snapshot: Davos WC Sprint Tour de Ski Freestyle Sprint Recap Race Snapshot: Liberec Freestyle Sprint
Wow, what a bummer of a day for Kikkan! But that’s sprint racing; everyone who makes it to the finals relies on at least a little bit of luck. Related posts:Race Snapshot: Davos WC Sprint Tour de Ski Freestyle Sprint Recap Race Snapshot: Liberec Freestyle Sprint Related posts: