Category: XCFeeds

I’m a stats guy.  I love numbers and data and graphs.  I will happily admit that this tends to make me, shall we say, particular about all things quantitative.  Some people may call it being anal; I prefer to think of it as being correct.

Which is why I need to take a moment to shake my fist angrily at the sky over the fact that cross country ski racing currently employs a sprint racing format that uses five quarterfinal heats.  Five.

Anyone remotely familiar with the English language ought to concede that if your tournament format has quarterfinals, there really ought to be four of them.  Now, I understand the difficulties here.  Thirty skiers advance to the elimination round heats.  Thirty is not evenly divisible by four.  So our options are limited to five heats of six skiers or six heats of five skiers. ^<1

The Latin and Greek prefix options are, to be honest, not encouraging.  Pentafinals has a distinct NAMBLA air to it, that I think we can all agree is distasteful.  Sexafinals sounds considerably more enjoyable and entertaining for skiers and spectators alike, but is also probably not appropriate.

That leaves Hexafinals and Quintafinals.  Hexafinals isn’t too bad, but some may complain that it conjures images of witches, or voodoo, or some such nonsense.  Quintafinals just sounds like your sprint race has been sponsored by a sub-par motel chain.

Personally, I’d probably be ok with hexafinals, but then there would need to be six of them and I doubt FIS is going to switch up the format just to satisfy my numerical and linguistic preferences.

Or we could just call them Elimination Rounds 1, 2 and 3.

But they aren’t quarterfinals, goddammit!  There are five of them.

Related posts:

1. <A New Sprint Points Method
2. <Distributed Sprint Points
3. <Andrew Newell: Qualifying vs. Heats

Forget racing the 50km, Marit: how about racing a Pisten Bully?

Forget racing the 50km, Marit: how about racing a Pisten Bully?

Forget racing the 50km, Marit: how about racing a Pisten Bully?

Forget racing the 50km, Marit: how about racing a Pisten Bully?

Here is a fun video of what the race this weekend will be like.  Watch this and you will want to do it!

Now for the sprinting versions of the graphs from my previous post. First up the men:

These graphs stretch back into the prehistory of sprinting, so keep that min mind. The Italian men kind of came out of the barn dominating sprinting (or whatever you want to call the “sprinting” events that existed back in the early 00′s) but haven’t kept that up at all. They’ve seen some flickers of life recently, though.

The graphs for the Finnish and German men are less interesting, with the only major change being Germany’s modest decline around 2003-2004.

Now for the women:

I’m not sure what the spike in 2003-2004 was for the Italian women. I’ll have to go back and check, but most likely it’s just one woman who had an unusually good year that year. The German women have seen a slow, general decline. The Finnish ladies have this big surge in the early 00′s and then crash in 2005-2006, rebound and then slowly declining again (although the top 30′s have remained mostly constant).

Related posts:

1. <Is It Panic Time For The Norwegian Men’s Distance Skiers?
2. <TdS 2010 vs 2011 Performance
3. <WJC/U23 Preview: International

More World Cup action from my home state! Technically, I’m more from Southern Maine, and there really is a distinction, but no matter. Looks like Scott Perras had an excellent race for the Canadians! Lowell Bailey had a good, but maybe not great day.

Related posts:

1. <Race Snapshot: IBU WC 3 Men’s/Women’s Sprint
2. <Race Snapshot: IBU WC 4 Men’s Sprint
3. <Race Snapshot: IBU WC 6 Men’s Sprint

So far my norwegian experience has been quite the adventure. Having never been to Norway before, I have failed to really use my brain, but instead run around in awe with my my eyes wide open. Nearly 60 hours into my trip now… I am just starting to loose the buzz. This country is amazing. I feel like I can’t stop looking around, and being in love, and simply not getting enough of every moment. There are nordic skiers everywhere! EVERYWHERE! Not only is everyone really nice, but they are all pretty, and they speak so nice. I have always enjoyed the sound of the norwegian language- there is nothing that reminds me of speedy skiing more!

So my first day with my brain turned off turned into quite the adventure. In my two activities of the day, one skiing, and two exploring downtown- I managed to get myself extremely lost- both with Jessie Diggins (who I believe is in the same state as me at this point). The skiing consisted of me strapping on some classic skis and taking off on the “Norwegian Highway”, which can simply be described as a classic trail, tracked three tracks wide, with approximately 500 skiers on it.! Thinking nothing off it, I set out on my skis, chatting away with Jessie, and loving every moment of the perfect tracks, great terrain, and beautiful skiing. About an hour into it I decided it was time to turn around…. but what I didn’t really realize is that during the past hour I had taken maybe 20 turns, all of which I didn’t pay attention to… and not only that- I had no idea what the place was called where I started. All norwegian words have lots of j’s, k’s, and i’s in them so its hard to even tell them apart. After asking nearly 10 people, all of which sent me different directions, I decided to just head in one direction and hope to god it would eventually take me there.! To my surprise 30 minutes later I started recognizing some of the trails!! I had made it home.

One of the many signs that make no sense!

Thinking I had figured it all out- I laughed it off and forgot to really ask what the place was called where we were staying…. which was my first mistake when Jessie and I headed out that afternoon for Oslo on the train system. The older girls told us “go on train 3, stay until the last stop, and you will make it home”. Trying to keep things exciting, Jessie and I tried to escape buying tickets, and just be sly. After being tourists, snapping lots of shots, hitting up all the souvenir shops, searching for the norwegian bjorn borg underwear, and buying some good chocolate- we set out for home. Following the signs to “3” we jumped on a train that did not look anything like what we started on. Realizing this just as the train started moving, we were stuck… and the ticket man was walking towards us. Somehow we escaped the madness and jumped off as quickly as we could at the next stop. Turns out that train was headed towards Trondheim… which is a long ways away from Oslo, and our hotel! Running around for about 30 minutes asking everyone where to go, when we didn’t even know what the name of the place was called quickly became pointless. Finally, when Jessie and I became super panicked, I spotted a woman wearing ski boots. Trying to describe to her what hotel we were at… we finally figured out we were on the underground train station, and we should be on the above ground… who woulda known there was two separate things!!

OSLO! National Theatre

sooooo Jessie and I slapped hands and headed in the right direction. Let me assure you, the first thing I did when I got back was ask the name of where we were and say it in my head 20 times to assure that I knew it!! Sandsvan!

Unfortunately we left the next day though….!!

We are now in Beitestolin for the Norwegian National Cup races which start tomorrow. Skate sprint, 10k classic, and 15k skate. Competition will be stiff, as always when norwegians are involved. Word is, there are close to 800 starters… should be good fun! We are staying in this sweet hotel with all the Norwegians, so I get to sit and eat dinner across from Astrid Jacobsen! Good fun 🙂

More to come soon!

I made a graph a while back for a post dealing with the concern in Norway about their men’s distance squad, and in a follow-up post I provided a version of the same graph for the Swedish and Russian men’s distance teams as well. I’ve decided that I kind of like this graph; it’s a handy way to look at big-picture trends for an entire nation over long periods of time.

Naturally, then, we should look at some other countries. Let’s start with men’s distance events:

Results per race for men's distance events.

This is simply charting the number of results at various levels (top 30, top 10, etc.) per race, per season for each nation.

Nothing terribly surprising falls out here, but it’s a nice way to visualize things. The Finnish men pretty much imploded beginning in 2000-2001 and have only recently started coming back to life. The German men have had a phenomenal decade, at one point averaging nearly one German man on the podium in every single race, but with their big stars aging and retiring things have been steadily falling.

The Italians performance looks more steady than I expected it to. There’s a general, slight decline in the number of top 30 and top 10 results over time. What stands out most, though, is the massive post-Torino Olympics crash in 2006-2007.

As for the women’s distance skiers:

Results per race for women's distance events.

The Finnish women hadn’t reached nearly the heights that the men had by the late 90′s, so it’s not surprising that you don’t see the same crash in results. But instead you actually see their results start to improve in the late 90′s, take a small hit in 2001-2002 (probably from losing Virpi Kuitunen) and then mostly continue making small improvements. In fact, that bump between 2006-2007 to 2008-2009 is largely due to Kuitunen picking things up again.

The German women have seen a similar ride as their men, although they were doing even worse through much of the 90′s.

The Italian women had consistently strong results through much of the 90′s due to some obvious names, surely. (Although they, too, seemed to suffer from a post-Olympic crash in 1994-1995?) Things tailed off during the early 00′s but have picked up again with Arianna Follis and Marianna Longa taking up the slack.

I’ll be back later with the same graphs but for the sprinters…

Related posts:

1. <Trends In US Skiing Performance: Distance
2. <Trends In US Skiing Performance: Sprint
3. <Recap: Davos Sprint Con’t

A strange discussion has suddenly broken out over at FasterSkier in response to some comments that Marit Björgen made about how she’d like be able to race the 50km distance just like the men do.

A reader  sent me a note asking if I’d specifically address this statement from the comments:

Looking at the times of sprint races (prologues) when men and women have gone the same distance, in almost identical conditions, you will see that the fastest women is normally a similar speed to the last man. This would leave only the last man in the field fighting for his manhood, and trying not to get chicked.
It is similar all the way up the distances if you look at the split speeds. Look at the times the women come through 1,3 then 5km (whatever the split points are on that day) then look at the mens times. Aften the first women is about the same as the last mn.

As far as I can tell, the commenter xclad’s first assertion is correct. Taking major international sprint races (WC, TDS, OWG and WSC) I found 42 instances over the past 7-8 years where the men and women appeared to use the same course for a sprint competition. In these cases, the fastest woman in qualification is in fact pretty close to the slowest man in qualification. The best a woman fared that I saw was to only have ~73% of the men ahead of her in qualification speed. Nearly half the time, the best woman would have been last in the men’s qualification.

As for xclad’s comment about split times in distance events, I can’t say. I don’t have access to split times for every race. But given that the disparity in the sprint times, it seems like that may at least be plausible.

I do have one caveat to add. I wrote a post a week or two ago describing differences in the times from round to round in men’s and women’s sprints. Specifically, for the women the qualification round is often the slowest round of the day, while for the men to opposite is often true. This means that comparing women’s qualification times to the men’s will often be comparing the women’s slowest times on that course for the day to the men’s fastest. (Not always, of course, there’s a fare bit of variation from race to race.)

Now, what I found in that previous post was that the median time for the women generally improved by around 5 seconds between qualification and the finals. So the question is, how much of a difference would those five seconds make in comparing the qualification times? Well, if I just artificially subtract five seconds from the best woman’s time, that still would only have put her in the top half of the men’s qualification field once.

As for my own personal feelings, I also think it’s quite silly that the men and women ski different distances. I’d love to see them do the same distances as part of my general desire for FIS to greatly simplify their collection of race formats. It’s may be true that a 50km for women would be a different sort of physiological test than it is for the men, but that’s fine. It’s not like the women’s 30km is really the physiological equivalent of the 50km for men as it is, I think.

Related posts:

1. <Recap: Davos Sprint
2. <Week In Review: Friday Jan 14th
3. <Liberec Sprint Recap

a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w-Bpk9ua6E8/TVNAixty79I/AAAAAAAAGYs/Nr3dMJkkz3g/s1600/IMG_0956.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-w-Bpk9ua6E8/TVNAixty79I/AAAAAAAAGYs/Nr3dMJkkz3g/s400/IMG_0956.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571868130192584658″ //aHere are two more pictures from last weekend; Anya getting after it in the skate race….and…br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-focqSiZcdZI/TVM_-BnSFJI/AAAAAAAAGYk/EO8oxbREcpk/s1600/IMG_0966.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-focqSiZcdZI/TVM_-BnSFJI/AAAAAAAAGYk/EO8oxbREcpk/s400/IMG_0966.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571867498805073042″ //a Izzy and Megan show “Once an SMS skier, always an SMS skier”.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mV3WgQtS088/TVM_ILhldhI/AAAAAAAAGYc/jUGBBE3KgtA/s1600/IMG_0987.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mV3WgQtS088/TVM_ILhldhI/AAAAAAAAGYc/jUGBBE3KgtA/s400/IMG_0987.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571866573752595986″ //aThis morning we did some classic intensity with a technique emphasis. Here is Mac, he was working on following through with his arms and it seemed to help.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7bhxPcxWHm0/TVM-u8kmrBI/AAAAAAAAGYU/T-z4UL1RYV8/s1600/IMG_0988.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7bhxPcxWHm0/TVM-u8kmrBI/AAAAAAAAGYU/T-z4UL1RYV8/s400/IMG_0988.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571866140241996818″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bLuIW_KxiD4/TVM927Gc8HI/AAAAAAAAGYM/HEDyoH8f2cE/s1600/IMG_0989.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 383px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-bLuIW_KxiD4/TVM927Gc8HI/AAAAAAAAGYM/HEDyoH8f2cE/s400/IMG_0989.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571865177774420082″ //aThis afternoon, we hosted the local BKL kids. We took a nice ski and worked on classic technique.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-daaBt-4K0cA/TVNBUkDsERI/AAAAAAAAGY0/3NYxuso79qQ/s1600/IMG_0991.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-daaBt-4K0cA/TVNBUkDsERI/AAAAAAAAGY0/3NYxuso79qQ/s400/IMG_0991.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571868985519771922″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-_ctsIuOoQ/TVM9mtu-HEI/AAAAAAAAGYE/KXxlRpzPZNk/s1600/IMG_0998.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A-_ctsIuOoQ/TVM9mtu-HEI/AAAAAAAAGYE/KXxlRpzPZNk/s400/IMG_0998.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571864899308362818″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vbk8_4ei_bM/TVM9Im2fMZI/AAAAAAAAGX8/L7ZFQ33gtsA/s1600/IMG_0999.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vbk8_4ei_bM/TVM9Im2fMZI/AAAAAAAAGX8/L7ZFQ33gtsA/s400/IMG_0999.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571864382064767378″ //aTess looking good.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Whr9mXq6GRY/TVM8x4bgjSI/AAAAAAAAGX0/DdpFPI6BjX0/s1600/IMG_1001.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Whr9mXq6GRY/TVM8x4bgjSI/AAAAAAAAGX0/DdpFPI6BjX0/s400/IMG_1001.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571863991646457122″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R_F5qz2cLlw/TVM8ZER7_jI/AAAAAAAAGXs/EehFY8pYKjQ/s1600/IMG_1005.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-R_F5qz2cLlw/TVM8ZER7_jI/AAAAAAAAGXs/EehFY8pYKjQ/s400/IMG_1005.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571863565330808370″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WSovFMNxSRI/TVM8AsLOCPI/AAAAAAAAGXk/q1Zq4IU1wn8/s1600/IMG_1012.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WSovFMNxSRI/TVM8AsLOCPI/AAAAAAAAGXk/q1Zq4IU1wn8/s400/IMG_1012.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571863146543319282″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sx6BzDdOTjg/TVM7ocTtTdI/AAAAAAAAGXc/zM-RKv_L7nI/s1600/IMG_1017.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sx6BzDdOTjg/TVM7ocTtTdI/AAAAAAAAGXc/zM-RKv_L7nI/s400/IMG_1017.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571862729967095250″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nsNowoDSIs4/TVM5Essbc1I/AAAAAAAAGXU/PtgJ9t-K1-M/s1600/IMG_1020.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nsNowoDSIs4/TVM5Essbc1I/AAAAAAAAGXU/PtgJ9t-K1-M/s400/IMG_1020.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571859916867203922″ //aOur “link trail” from the Sun Bowl ends on our soccer field.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glBNYYy6oKo/TVM4wAt7OLI/AAAAAAAAGXM/QVeIHlVG9iM/s1600/IMG_1023.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-glBNYYy6oKo/TVM4wAt7OLI/AAAAAAAAGXM/QVeIHlVG9iM/s400/IMG_1023.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571859561464936626″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-giYfpxCssWM/TVM4NzjsJPI/AAAAAAAAGXE/KOuOPuoiXTw/s1600/IMG_1028.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-giYfpxCssWM/TVM4NzjsJPI/AAAAAAAAGXE/KOuOPuoiXTw/s400/IMG_1028.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571858973816792306″ //aWe finished the afternoon with some hot chocolate.br /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-00pRrl2CSlg/TVM35u45ciI/AAAAAAAAGW8/SUBLRpqHy60/s1600/IMG_1032.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-00pRrl2CSlg/TVM35u45ciI/AAAAAAAAGW8/SUBLRpqHy60/s400/IMG_1032.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571858628966183458″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QChVtvE-jrw/TVM3mOnizcI/AAAAAAAAGW0/ZtDAx73NzQ8/s1600/IMG_1034.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QChVtvE-jrw/TVM3mOnizcI/AAAAAAAAGW0/ZtDAx73NzQ8/s400/IMG_1034.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571858293885947330″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-buxytWcokZc/TVM3SxCdFQI/AAAAAAAAGWs/_d6Mb6rJeL8/s1600/IMG_1036.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-buxytWcokZc/TVM3SxCdFQI/AAAAAAAAGWs/_d6Mb6rJeL8/s400/IMG_1036.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571857959528240386″ //abr /a onblur=”try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}” href=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4PIPpVu6Bvo/TVM2_y2XLgI/AAAAAAAAGWk/52kj5vGdQOM/s1600/IMG_1038.JPG”img style=”display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;” src=”http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4PIPpVu6Bvo/TVM2_y2XLgI/AAAAAAAAGWk/52kj5vGdQOM/s400/IMG_1038.JPG” border=”0″ alt=”” id=”BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5571857633596878338″ //adiv class=”blogger-post-footer”img width=’1′ height=’1′ src=’https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4680416899705879324-4085020798806784025?l=smsxc.blogspot.com’ alt=” //div

As always, it’s nice to see plenty of North Americans jaunting around Europe getting in some good racing. I returned from my travels this weekend to learn that some Americans had some strong results at the Scandinavian Cups in Estonia. Let’s take a bit of a closer look at the distance results, shall we?

First off, Reese Hanneman was the only American to race the 15km classic race. As best as I can tell, there were precisely two athletes in that race that he’d faced before, both of them at World Juniors last season. (In both cases he still lost to them, but by much, much less.) So I’m not even going to touch that one. Too little data.

Even for the women, the number of athletes that have faced each other before is fairly small, so keep that in mind as I run through this. Let’s start with Ida Sargent, who finished 21st, earning her 67.77 FIS points, which is quite good for her:

Excellent! Lower points is always a good thing. However, what happens when we look directly at how she skied that day compared to her performances against those specific skiers in the past?

This looks more “par” to me, or even a bit sub. Recall that each point is an instance of Sargent racing against one of the competitors from Sunday’s distance race; negative values are good, positive are bad; the median over time is in red.

Obviously, there still isn’t a ton of data for comparison here. I mean, half of the data in this plot is comprised of past match-ups with other North Americans. So what if we’re interested in a more focused comparison with just the European women she’s raced against previously?

I’ve grouped the values by competitor, so each line is one of the European women from Sunday’s race that she’s faced before. What we’re seeing here is that there are a handful of skiers who she did really poorly against last season at U23s, but nearly everyone else she faced earlier was back in November. And in basically every single case, Sargent skied worse relative to those ladies than she did in November.

Of course, lots of different things could be going on here. It’s well known that Ida Sargent was involved in some sort of car accident around Christmas (and thank goodness she’s ok!) which has impacted her skiing for much of January. It’s tempting to construct a story about peaking that posits that many of the European ladies I’m comparing Sargent to were not in great form back in November, but have since improved dramatically. More likely we’re seeing some combination of the two: Sargent is still off her game a bit and the other ladies have skied into better form over the past few months.

On a brighter note, Becca Rorabaugh and Jennie Bender’s races looked somewhat stronger, Bender’s in particular:

Becca Rorabaugh

Jennie Bender

Related posts:

1. <OPA Cup vs Scandinavian Cup: Quality
2. <Assessing The Weekend’s Racing
3. <Marit Bjoergen’s Best Freestyle Race