FasterSkier

Category: XCFeeds

A collection of live feeds from cross-country ski blogs around the web.

  • Full Coverage of Kikkan Randall’s Recent World Cup Win in Liberec

  • 2.2 seconds

    Boulder Lake 2011:

    The day was cold, and the snow was slow. I was just happy that it had warmed up to zero degrees by the 11am start, and with the sun it felt much warmer than that. The trails were also in great shape this year. I had switched to larger baskets on my poles in anticipation of soft trails (last year I punched through a lot), but the trails were firm and my skis felt good (I had Fast Wax Green with a layer of Rex TK-72 over the top. Thanks Devin!).

    Before the race started I heard Nikolai Anikin say that Tyler Kjorstad (who had beaten both Nikolai and I last year) was going to take the pace out fast from the start. When the gun went off, he did. At the end of the lake I found myself in the 2nd position, about 10m behind Tyler, and leading a big pack of skiers. Behind me was Nikolai, and he was telling me to keep Tyler in sight. Boulder Lake is a flat course, with no significant uphills to put a significant move on the competition, but also no downhills to recover. I made the mistake of pulling my competition around the course only to have them all fly by me in the last 3k the first time I did this race 4 years ago, and since then I have learned how this course races – it is one of attrition. With this in mind I did not want to be pulling the field, but I also wanted to make sure that Tyler was not able to pull away from the start and put significant distance on the field. I decided to keep him in sight, but to ski as easily as I could while doing so. This also left him out off the front working by himself for the first 2 or 3 kilometers of the race. Eventually the gap did close (he probably did not like the idea of skiing 31k completely solo) and the pace slowed way down. I kept myself in 3rd or 4th position, completely satisfied to be skiing along at a pace that was certainly slower than most of the 3 hour rollerskis that Vakava does in Afton. Tyler was still the skier at the front most of the time, and every now and then would increase the pace a little, but we still had a pack of more than a dozen skiers going into the first water stop of the second lap (probably 13k into the race). Tyler was leading, Casey was second, a random skier was third, and I was sitting in fourth. At the end of the water stop, Tyler took off with Casey close behind. I quickly surged around the 3rd skier and bridged the gap to them. Looking back we had put a bit of a gap on the field. I mentioned this, and Tyler and Casey motioned for me to take a turn at the front. I went to the front and put in a big surge. I pushed for probably 2k before I turned around to see who had stuck with us. To my suprise, Tyler was gone (and ended up dropping out), and only Nikolai and Casey were still there. We started rotating leads and skied along with the pace up for the rest of the second and into the third lap. At some point early in the third lap I took my turn at the front of the pack and Casey dropped back. Nikolai and I continued on, as the constant nature of the race was starting to give me a blurry tunnel vision. We continued to take turns at the front, and when I was in the lead I would periodically put in a little harder surge to test Nikolai. He had skied the SISU marathon the day before, and I was hoping his legs would be giving out, but no such luck. With about 2k to go the pace was pretty high and I was in the lead when I poled right on the top of my ski. I promptly face planted in the middle of the trail and Nikolai narrowly avoided skiing right over the top of me. As I looked up through one goggle lens filled with snow Nikolai was ahead, but in a true showing of sportsmanship had slowed down to wait for me. I scrambled up and we resumed the race with Nikolai in the lead. After a minute or two he put in a big surge, but I was able to stay on him, and I got onto the lake in what I thought was the perfect position for the final sprint – right on Nikolai’s heels. I had outsprinted him from this position successfully 2 years ago, but this year our mad dash to the line did nothing to change our positions, and I finished right on Nikolai’s heels. I was very happy with my race. I felt great throughout, which is 2 for 2 feeling good at races dispite my more difficult work/life schedule.

    Oh, and 2.2 seconds is not how much Nikolai beat me by this year. It is the combined finish time separation between myself and Nikolai over the last 3 years at Boulder Lake. That is 2.2 seconds over a total of 93k of racing. This year he got me by 9/10 of a second.

    Vakava Results at Boulder Lake:
    2nd Nate (age group win)
    7th Paul
    18th Dave C (age group win)
    3rd Carolyn
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)
    7th Katie
    13th Nichole

  • 2.2 seconds

    Boulder Lake 2011:

    The day was cold, and the snow was slow. I was just happy that it had warmed up to zero degrees by the 11am start, and with the sun it felt much warmer than that. The trails were also in great shape this year. I had switched to larger baskets on my poles in anticipation of soft trails (last year I punched through a lot), but the trails were firm and my skis felt good (I had Fast Wax Green with a layer of Rex TK-72 over the top. Thanks Devin!).

    Before the race started I heard Nikolai Anikin say that Tyler Kjorstad (who had beaten both Nikolai and I last year) was going to take the pace out fast from the start. When the gun went off, he did. At the end of the lake I found myself in the 2nd position, about 10m behind Tyler, and leading a big pack of skiers. Behind me was Nikolai, and he was telling me to keep Tyler in sight. Boulder Lake is a flat course, with no significant uphills to put a significant move on the competition, but also no downhills to recover. I made the mistake of pulling my competition around the course only to have them all fly by me in the last 3k the first time I did this race 4 years ago, and since then I have learned how this course races – it is one of attrition. With this in mind I did not want to be pulling the field, but I also wanted to make sure that Tyler was not able to pull away from the start and put significant distance on the field. I decided to keep him in sight, but to ski as easily as I could while doing so. This also left him out off the front working by himself for the first 2 or 3 kilometers of the race. Eventually the gap did close (he probably did not like the idea of skiing 31k completely solo) and the pace slowed way down. I kept myself in 3rd or 4th position, completely satisfied to be skiing along at a pace that was certainly slower than most of the 3 hour rollerskis that Vakava does in Afton. Tyler was still the skier at the front most of the time, and every now and then would increase the pace a little, but we still had a pack of more than a dozen skiers going into the first water stop of the second lap (probably 13k into the race). Tyler was leading, Casey was second, a random skier was third, and I was sitting in fourth. At the end of the water stop, Tyler took off with Casey close behind. I quickly surged around the 3rd skier and bridged the gap to them. Looking back we had put a bit of a gap on the field. I mentioned this, and Tyler and Casey motioned for me to take a turn at the front. I went to the front and put in a big surge. I pushed for probably 2k before I turned around to see who had stuck with us. To my suprise, Tyler was gone (and ended up dropping out), and only Nikolai and Casey were still there. We started rotating leads and skied along with the pace up for the rest of the second and into the third lap. At some point early in the third lap I took my turn at the front of the pack and Casey dropped back. Nikolai and I continued on, as the constant nature of the race was starting to give me a blurry tunnel vision. We continued to take turns at the front, and when I was in the lead I would periodically put in a little harder surge to test Nikolai. He had skied the SISU marathon the day before, and I was hoping his legs would be giving out, but no such luck. With about 2k to go the pace was pretty high and I was in the lead when I poled right on the top of my ski. I promptly face planted in the middle of the trail and Nikolai narrowly avoided skiing right over the top of me. As I looked up through one goggle lens filled with snow Nikolai was ahead, but in a true showing of sportsmanship had slowed down to wait for me. I scrambled up and we resumed the race with Nikolai in the lead. After a minute or two he put in a big surge, but I was able to stay on him, and I got onto the lake in what I thought was the perfect position for the final sprint – right on Nikolai’s heels. I had outsprinted him from this position successfully 2 years ago, but this year our mad dash to the line did nothing to change our positions, and I finished right on Nikolai’s heels. I was very happy with my race. I felt great throughout, which is 2 for 2 feeling good at races dispite my more difficult work/life schedule.

    Oh, and 2.2 seconds is not how much Nikolai beat me by this year. It is the combined finish time separation between myself and Nikolai over the last 3 years at Boulder Lake. That is 2.2 seconds over a total of 93k of racing. This year he got me by 9/10 of a second.

    Vakava Results at Boulder Lake:
    2nd Nate (age group win)
    7th Paul
    18th Dave C (age group win)
    3rd Carolyn
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)
    7th Katie
    13th Nichole

  • 2.2 seconds

    Boulder Lake 2011:

    The day was cold, and the snow was slow. I was just happy that it had warmed up to zero degrees by the 11am start, and with the sun it felt much warmer than that. The trails were also in great shape this year. I had switched to larger baskets on my poles in anticipation of soft trails (last year I punched through a lot), but the trails were firm and my skis felt good (I had Fast Wax Green with a layer of Rex TK-72 over the top. Thanks Devin!).

    Before the race started I heard Nikolai Anikin say that Tyler Kjorstad (who had beaten both Nikolai and I last year) was going to take the pace out fast from the start. When the gun went off, he did. At the end of the lake I found myself in the 2nd position, about 10m behind Tyler, and leading a big pack of skiers. Behind me was Nikolai, and he was telling me to keep Tyler in sight. Boulder Lake is a flat course, with no significant uphills to put a significant move on the competition, but also no downhills to recover. I made the mistake of pulling my competition around the course only to have them all fly by me in the last 3k the first time I did this race 4 years ago, and since then I have learned how this course races – it is one of attrition. With this in mind I did not want to be pulling the field, but I also wanted to make sure that Tyler was not able to pull away from the start and put significant distance on the field. I decided to keep him in sight, but to ski as easily as I could while doing so. This also left him out off the front working by himself for the first 2 or 3 kilometers of the race. Eventually the gap did close (he probably did not like the idea of skiing 31k completely solo) and the pace slowed way down. I kept myself in 3rd or 4th position, completely satisfied to be skiing along at a pace that was certainly slower than most of the 3 hour rollerskis that Vakava does in Afton. Tyler was still the skier at the front most of the time, and every now and then would increase the pace a little, but we still had a pack of more than a dozen skiers going into the first water stop of the second lap (probably 13k into the race). Tyler was leading, Casey was second, a random skier was third, and I was sitting in fourth. At the end of the water stop, Tyler took off with Casey close behind. I quickly surged around the 3rd skier and bridged the gap to them. Looking back we had put a bit of a gap on the field. I mentioned this, and Tyler and Casey motioned for me to take a turn at the front. I went to the front and put in a big surge. I pushed for probably 2k before I turned around to see who had stuck with us. To my suprise, Tyler was gone (and ended up dropping out), and only Nikolai and Casey were still there. We started rotating leads and skied along with the pace up for the rest of the second and into the third lap. At some point early in the third lap I took my turn at the front of the pack and Casey dropped back. Nikolai and I continued on, as the constant nature of the race was starting to give me a blurry tunnel vision. We continued to take turns at the front, and when I was in the lead I would periodically put in a little harder surge to test Nikolai. He had skied the SISU marathon the day before, and I was hoping his legs would be giving out, but no such luck. With about 2k to go the pace was pretty high and I was in the lead when I poled right on the top of my ski. I promptly face planted in the middle of the trail and Nikolai narrowly avoided skiing right over the top of me. As I looked up through one goggle lens filled with snow Nikolai was ahead, but in a true showing of sportsmanship had slowed down to wait for me. I scrambled up and we resumed the race with Nikolai in the lead. After a minute or two he put in a big surge, but I was able to stay on him, and I got onto the lake in what I thought was the perfect position for the final sprint – right on Nikolai’s heels. I had outsprinted him from this position successfully 2 years ago, but this year our mad dash to the line did nothing to change our positions, and I finished right on Nikolai’s heels. I was very happy with my race. I felt great throughout, which is 2 for 2 feeling good at races dispite my more difficult work/life schedule.

    Oh, and 2.2 seconds is not how much Nikolai beat me by this year. It is the combined finish time separation between myself and Nikolai over the last 3 years at Boulder Lake. That is 2.2 seconds over a total of 93k of racing. This year he got me by 9/10 of a second.

    Vakava Results at Boulder Lake:
    2nd Nate (age group win)
    7th Paul
    18th Dave C (age group win)
    3rd Carolyn
    4th Angie (age group win)
    5th Cheryl (age group win)
    7th Katie
    13th Nichole

  • Harrachov, Czech Republic COC

    Quick update for everyone, I am now in Harrachov for the last competitions before we head home. The hill is a fun hill that is very low to the ground. It is sort of old but still is in good shape. We took our first jumps on it Tuesday and it has been too warm to jump the rest of the days due to the moisture in the air. The cross country course seems to be hard but I don’t know if I have skiing the correct course yet. Bryan, Todd, Johnny, and Billy, are in Chaux neuve for the last world world cup before Oslo. I am very excited be skiing in the Continental Cup again to try and get some highly valuable confidence before I head home. Getting points was a big boost for me and I want to try and keep the momentum going before I head back to Park City for some time off. I feel like my fitness is better than last weekend and hopefully I can Grab a couple podiums and some money. Tomorrow is official where we will do some practice jump and our pre-race intervals before the competitions on Saturday and Sunday.
    Stay tuned for results and Pictures!

  • Brighter Planet.

    bpgrp

    Finding ways to make a professional ski team ‘green’ is a tough job. On one hand we’ve made a commitment to developing young skiers into international competitors. On the other, we’ve also made environmental initiatives and awareness an equally important goal. It’s a difficult position to be in- the Green Racing Project isn’t going to sacrifice racing opportunities just because it may take some jet fuel to get to the start line, but we are also constantly working on ways to counter those rather inflexible decisions. We’ve put ourselves under a public microscope, at least within the skiing community, and the things we do really do draw attention, both in negative and positive ways. Unfortunately for us, the majority of our ‘green’ initiatives, namely projects we’ve worked on at Craftsbury, aren’t seen on race days away from home.

    What the green problem really comes down to for us as skiers though, is transportation. There is no way around it. We can’t avoid traveling, though we’ve done what we can to be efficient; the whole team fits in our diesel Sprinter that gets significantly better mileage than our old ski van. Flying is the stickler, and every season there are important races on the west coast and in Europe.

    One rather controversial way to minimize the impact of air travel is carbon offsets. We’ve recently joined this controversy in a big way through an agreement with Brighter Planet to offset all of the team’s travel to races for the 2010-11 season- some 110,000 pounds of carbon we are responsible for over the winter. This one is going to give the folks looking through the microscope something to talk about.

    It wasn’t an easy decision for the team to make. There has been lots of print about fraudulent offset companies taking money from costumers and putting it directly into their pockets; no trees were planted, no windmills were built. There’s the papal indulgence argument, that carbon offsets are the modern equivalent of what set Martin Luther off a half-millenium ago, a payment for absolution rather than changed behavior. And there’s the criticism of forepayment; the fact that helping build a future windmill isn’t actually offsetting your carbon footprint today. Treeplanting isn’t as effective as they claim. Indigenous land rights are being violated. There’s no regulation in this voluntary market of $700 million per year.

    There’s certainly plenty of nay-saying when it comes to carbon offsets. But Brighter Planet seems to stand on firmer ground than the shaky depictions by the media. We know where our offsets are going- directly to financing a wind turbine at the Hanson Farm in Minnesota. While this turbine might not be directly offsetting our travel by this winter, what’s more important is that our investment is leading to additional clean energy production that otherwise would not have been built. Brighter Planet also has complete transparency with their offset projects; the selection process includes a public comment period for those under consideration and annual audits of sales and retirements.

    The company started in Vermont with a credit card offering carbon offset points for purchases made instead of frequent flier miles or cash rewards. It seems a just substitution. They also donate a percentage of their profits to the Project Fund, an online community where Brighter Planet members vote on projects proposed by Brighter Planet members. The winning proposals receive a grant to implement their project in their home communities. Craftsbury is looking forward to putting some of our own projects up to the Project Fund and looking into to using their card for team expenses.

    While I can’t say that we’ve changed our behavior when it comes to transportation, we have invested in shifting towards a clean energy future. It doesn’t feel like absolution to me- it feels like we’re doing what we can as a relatively inconsequential group of cross country skiers in northern Vermont. We don’t really have many other options. Maybe supporting renewable energy projects now can lead to a better solution to the clean transportation dilemma.

    If guilty consciences are voluntarily putting up $700 million per year, imagine what a guilty government might be able to do with their investments. We can only hope that serious investment in renewable energy at a global scale may follow. For those looking through the microscope- carbon offsets aren’t a solution, but they certainly help.

    Republished from Vermont Sports January 2011.


  • Super Tour Weekend Recap

    Thanks to the efforts of NYSEF and ORDA New York ski racers were offered the opportunity to race the nations best skiers in a very familiar setting. To say that NY’ers had an unfair advantage may be true but with the level of talent in Lake Placid any advantage was welcome.

    (Reed getting after it!)

    Their were 4 athletes racing this weekend that will be representing the U.S.A at the World Championships. The opportunity for our juniors to see these athletes up close and personal is priceless.
    (Waxing up our boards for the classic race! Toko Green Binder with some White over it worked all day for most of us some liked a little Mint mixed in)

    All of the our athletes experienced the high’s and low’s of racing this weekend. There was not time to waste though as all of the juniors had a high school race back in Rochester Monday morning! The results this winter have proved one thing that many already know. If you want to become a better skier you better be doing something over the summer!
    (Happy to be racing)
    In the high school race on Monday the boys took 6 of the top 10 spots! The girls were not to be outdone and took 5 of the top 7 sports including going 1st-4th !! Congratulations to all of the R.N.R Juniors this weekend ! One thing about NY is that it is dominated by high school skiing, without the cooperation of the local high school coached the junior program would not exist! To become a better ski nation we need cooperation and I’m glad to know that the Rochester area can see past the lines that divide most and move forward in developing the best student athletes possible

    (The old man of the group)

    The senior team stuck around Saturday and went out Sunday morning to preview to Loppet course. The skiing was great and we were all sad to leave. I don’t think you can beat the Porter Mnt Loop to East Mnt and High Notch anywhere in the country, lots of climbing and absolutely beautiful scenery.

    (at the top of high notch)

    We revealed our new suits this weekend, so the secret is out now who is racing for R.N.R ! After a great weekend of racing we are happy to welcome our newest member! We are not in to signing out of area skiers in hopes to win point races, as we are more interested in winning THE RACE! But we decided to make an exception for the G.O.A.T !!



    (The G.O.A.T)

    Great racing by everyone this weekend a big shout out to all of the skiers and clubs from NY who took advantage of the SUPER TOUR on our home turf! As I have always believed if you want to be the best you need to race the best because you will have a choice to make when you are done.

    Are you in or are you out ?

  • Super Tour Weekend Recap

    Thanks to the efforts of NYSEF and ORDA New York ski racers were offered the opportunity to race the nations best skiers in a very familiar setting. To say that NY’ers had an unfair advantage may be true but with the level of talent in Lake Placid any advantage was welcome.

    (Reed getting after it!)

    Their were 4 athletes racing this weekend that will be representing the U.S.A at the World Championships. The opportunity for our juniors to see these athletes up close and personal is priceless.
    (Waxing up our boards for the classic race! Toko Green Binder with some White over it worked all day for most of us some liked a little Mint mixed in)

    All of the our athletes experienced the high’s and low’s of racing this weekend. There was not time to waste though as all of the juniors had a high school race back in Rochester Monday morning! The results this winter have proved one thing that many already know. If you want to become a better skier you better be doing something over the summer!
    (Happy to be racing)
    In the high school race on Monday the boys took 6 of the top 10 spots! The girls were not to be outdone and took 5 of the top 7 sports including going 1st-4th !! Congratulations to all of the R.N.R Juniors this weekend ! One thing about NY is that it is dominated by high school skiing, without the cooperation of the local high school coached the junior program would not exist! To become a better ski nation we need cooperation and I’m glad to know that the Rochester area can see past the lines that divide most and move forward in developing the best student athletes possible

    (The old man of the group)

    The senior team stuck around Saturday and went out Sunday morning to preview to Loppet course. The skiing was great and we were all sad to leave. I don’t think you can beat the Porter Mnt Loop to East Mnt and High Notch anywhere in the country, lots of climbing and absolutely beautiful scenery.

    (at the top of high notch)

    We revealed our new suits this weekend, so the secret is out now who is racing for R.N.R ! After a great weekend of racing we are happy to welcome our newest member! We are not in to signing out of area skiers in hopes to win point races, as we are more interested in winning THE RACE! But we decided to make an exception for the G.O.A.T !!



    (The G.O.A.T)

    Great racing by everyone this weekend a big shout out to all of the skiers and clubs from NY who took advantage of the SUPER TOUR on our home turf! As I have always believed if you want to be the best you need to race the best because you will have a choice to make when you are done.

    Are you in or are you out ?

  • Super Tour Weekend Recap

    Thanks to the efforts of NYSEF and ORDA New York ski racers were offered the opportunity to race the nations best skiers in a very familiar setting. To say that NY’ers had an unfair advantage may be true but with the level of talent in Lake Placid any advantage was welcome.

    (Reed getting after it!)

    Their were 4 athletes racing this weekend that will be representing the U.S.A at the World Championships. The opportunity for our juniors to see these athletes up close and personal is priceless.
    (Waxing up our boards for the classic race! Toko Green Binder with some White over it worked all day for most of us some liked a little Mint mixed in)

    All of the our athletes experienced the high’s and low’s of racing this weekend. There was not time to waste though as all of the juniors had a high school race back in Rochester Monday morning! The results this winter have proved one thing that many already know. If you want to become a better skier you better be doing something over the summer!
    (Happy to be racing)
    In the high school race on Monday the boys took 6 of the top 10 spots! The girls were not to be outdone and took 5 of the top 7 sports including going 1st-4th !! Congratulations to all of the R.N.R Juniors this weekend ! One thing about NY is that it is dominated by high school skiing, without the cooperation of the local high school coached the junior program would not exist! To become a better ski nation we need cooperation and I’m glad to know that the Rochester area can see past the lines that divide most and move forward in developing the best student athletes possible

    (The old man of the group)

    The senior team stuck around Saturday and went out Sunday morning to preview to Loppet course. The skiing was great and we were all sad to leave. I don’t think you can beat the Porter Mnt Loop to East Mnt and High Notch anywhere in the country, lots of climbing and absolutely beautiful scenery.

    (at the top of high notch)

    We revealed our new suits this weekend, so the secret is out now who is racing for R.N.R ! After a great weekend of racing we are happy to welcome our newest member! We are not in to signing out of area skiers in hopes to win point races, as we are more interested in winning THE RACE! But we decided to make an exception for the G.O.A.T !!



    (The G.O.A.T)

    Great racing by everyone this weekend a big shout out to all of the skiers and clubs from NY who took advantage of the SUPER TOUR on our home turf! As I have always believed if you want to be the best you need to race the best because you will have a choice to make when you are done.

    Are you in or are you out ?

  • Super Tour Weekend Recap

    Thanks to the efforts of NYSEF and ORDA New York ski racers were offered the opportunity to race the nations best skiers in a very familiar setting. To say that NY’ers had an unfair advantage may be true but with the level of talent in Lake Placid any advantage was welcome.

    (Reed getting after it!)

    Their were 4 athletes racing this weekend that will be representing the U.S.A at the World Championships. The opportunity for our juniors to see these athletes up close and personal is priceless.
    (Waxing up our boards for the classic race! Toko Green Binder with some White over it worked all day for most of us some liked a little Mint mixed in)

    All of the our athletes experienced the high’s and low’s of racing this weekend. There was not time to waste though as all of the juniors had a high school race back in Rochester Monday morning! The results this winter have proved one thing that many already know. If you want to become a better skier you better be doing something over the summer!
    (Happy to be racing)
    In the high school race on Monday the boys took 6 of the top 10 spots! The girls were not to be outdone and took 5 of the top 7 sports including going 1st-4th !! Congratulations to all of the R.N.R Juniors this weekend ! One thing about NY is that it is dominated by high school skiing, without the cooperation of the local high school coached the junior program would not exist! To become a better ski nation we need cooperation and I’m glad to know that the Rochester area can see past the lines that divide most and move forward in developing the best student athletes possible

    (The old man of the group)

    The senior team stuck around Saturday and went out Sunday morning to preview to Loppet course. The skiing was great and we were all sad to leave. I don’t think you can beat the Porter Mnt Loop to East Mnt and High Notch anywhere in the country, lots of climbing and absolutely beautiful scenery.

    (at the top of high notch)

    We revealed our new suits this weekend, so the secret is out now who is racing for R.N.R ! After a great weekend of racing we are happy to welcome our newest member! We are not in to signing out of area skiers in hopes to win point races, as we are more interested in winning THE RACE! But we decided to make an exception for the G.O.A.T !!



    (The G.O.A.T)

    Great racing by everyone this weekend a big shout out to all of the skiers and clubs from NY who took advantage of the SUPER TOUR on our home turf! As I have always believed if you want to be the best you need to race the best because you will have a choice to make when you are done.

    Are you in or are you out ?

  • Andrew Newell Sprint Qualification Redux

    So there was this post a while back where I looked at the oft repeated CW that Andrew Newell tends to qualify rather fast and then slip back a bit in the heats.  My goal was just to see whether and to what degree this actually happens.  It turns out that my attempt to tackle this topic is slightly cursed because I keep messing it up.

    The first time around I mistakenly mixed sprint races with 16 and 30 people moving on into the heats.  More recently, Nat Herz reminded me of something that should have been obvious from the start: people who qualify well are more likely to move backwards simply because there are only so many spots available to them to move up.

    For example, if you qualify 3rd, in some respects you more likely to do worse in the heat simply because there’s more room behind you than in front of you.  To give you a sense for how right Nat was about this effect, check out this plot:

    As you can see, it’s much more common for people who qualify well (i.e. top 5-10) to end up losing places, and vice versa for people who qualify slowly.  However, the blue trend lines probably aren’t as steep as you might expect.  This is because there’s another general trend working in the opposite direction.  Skiers who qualify well do actually tend, on average, to be faster skiers.  So it’s quite common for them to do as well or better in the finals.  You can see this tendency in the plot by looking at the size of the points, which indicate how often a particular combination occurred.

    How do we fix this?  Simple: rather than looking at the difference between each skier’s qualification and final places, we instead look at how that difference compares to the median difference over all skiers who qualified at that rank.  For instance, say I qualified 5th and then ended up in 9th after the heats.  That’s a change of 5-9 = -4.  We then look at all the people who qualified 5th and calculate the median change across all these skiers, suppose it’s -2.  That means that I moved back two more places than is “typical” for people who qualified 5th.

    Here are plots focusing on the men and women who’ve done at least 15 WC sprint races over the past 4 years or so, complete with error bars:

    Recall that the scale on the x axis here is the change relative to the median for skiers who qualify at that level.  So negative values are “bad” and positive values are “good”.  So in this version we’d say that Andrew Newell tends to move back ~3 places more than what is typical given where he qualifies.

    Luckily (for me) things don’t change dramatically.  While this might seem puzzling, really it’s connected to those two opposing tendencies I mentioned above:

    • On the one hand, skiers qualifying well will tend to do worse in the finals since there are more places available to behind them than in front of them.
    • On the other hand, skiers who qualify well are in fact usually faster sprinters, so they are likely to do as well or better in the finals.

    It just turns out that there two forces end up mostly canceling each other out.  Thanks again to Nat for bringing this up, it really improved the analysis!

    Related posts:

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


  • Bibs and Boards (Liberec Edition)

    The “sprint weekend” on the world championship courses at Liberec saw Kikkan Randall win the individual skate event and Bjørgen return to form with a ridiculously easy win in the classic team sprint. The bibs were simple little numbers:Kajot is a “gaming” company in the Czech Republic – it makes slot machines. Hence the clever substitution of lucky number seven for the J in the name – not that

  • Bibs and Boards (Liberec Edition)

    The “sprint weekend” on the world championship courses at Liberec saw Kikkan Randall win the individual skate event and Bjørgen return to form with a ridiculously easy win in the classic team sprint. The bibs were simple little numbers:Kajot is a “gaming” company in the Czech Republic – it makes slot machines. Hence the clever substitution of lucky number seven for the J in the name – not that

  • Bibs and Boards (Liberec Edition)

    The “sprint weekend” on the world championship courses at Liberec saw Kikkan Randall win the individual skate event and Bjørgen return to form with a ridiculously easy win in the classic team sprint. The bibs were simple little numbers:Kajot is a “gaming” company in the Czech Republic – it makes slot machines. Hence the clever substitution of lucky number seven for the J in the name – not that

  • Wax Tip: Pepsi Challenge

  • Technique Preferences: Norway

    The third in the series, looking at differences in performance in skating vs. classic races for particular nations.  We’ve already done Japan and Italy.  Now, by request, we have Norway.

    To avoid repeating myself, I’m going to skip much of the introduction and explanation for the methodology and graphs.  Go read the Italy post if you need a refresher.

    Distance

    First we’ll look at the estimates for each individual skier over their entire career:

    There are a ton more skiers here, even after filtering out those with fewer than 2 skating and classic races, so I’m sorry that the names are a little hard to read.  As always, negative values (on the x axis) indicated better performance in skating races relative to the median WC skier.

    As we might have expected, most Norwegians shown here are nominally better at classic skiing (positive value) and up near the top there are quite a few that even appear statistically significant (error bar doesn’t overlap zero).  Good old Odd-Bjoern, hanging out up there!

    Unlike with Italy, we don’t see much of a difference between the men and women.

    Here’s how things have changed over time for the entire team:

    As before, there are some years that look unusual: 1996-1997 Women, 2007-2008 Men+Women, maybe 2004-2005 Men.  In a more “serious” analysis we’d go back and check those out to make sure our model isn’t doing something funky.  Perhaps I’ll get to that sometime…for now, though, I wouldn’t necessarily leap to the conclusion that the Norwegian women were suddenly way worse at skating (or better at classic) in 1996-1997 and then returned to normal the next year.  I’d be similarly cautious about interpreting 2007-2008.

    And of course, the 2010-2011 estimate is preliminary.

    Overall, though, we’re seeing a mild preference for classic (positive values) with the men that’s been mostly stable since the mid-90′s.  The women have seen more of an up and down, but only if we ignore the “problem seasons” of 1996-1997 and 2007-2008.  Ignoring those aberrations it looks like the Norwegian women went from preferring classic to being roughly even and then really preferring classic and then finally coming back down toward being roughly even in recent years.

    Sprint

    The results for sprinting are a bit more decisive:

    Recall that the scale has changed from median percent back to rank.  Positive values still mean that a skier’s classic results were better than their skating results and vice versa.

    Only four Norweigan sprinters appear to have even a nominal preference for skating (negative values), but overall not many of these effects appear statistically significant.  There’s a mild difference between the men and women, perhaps, with fewer Norwegian women having values near zero or negative.

    And finally, how this has changed over time for the entire team:

    As before, don’t put much faith in the estimates for 2010-2011 (note the larger confidence intervals, indicating less certainty?).  Excluding the questionable estimate from this season, it seems like both the men and women are moving slightly towards the classic end of things (positive values) lately, but it’s a pretty small change.  Also, only a handful of these confidence intervals appear significant.

    Related posts:

    1. <Post-WJC/U23 Development: Norway
    2. <Technique Specialization
    3. <Do The Japanese Prefer Classic Skiing?


  • Hit by Boulder

  • Hit by Boulder

  • Hit by Boulder

  • I’m Starting to Get Nervous about the Pepsi Challenge!