Since it’s Friday, here’s something kind of silly… Last week, I introduced the concept of victims and nemeses, for distance races. Â A nemesis is a skier who has beaten you on multiple occasions by a small margin (fewer than ten seconds). Â Victims are just the reverse: people you have beaten on multiple occasions by fewer […]
Tagged gadflies, nemeses, punching bags, victimsBjoern Daehlie (NOR) is generally considered one of the greatest male skiers in history (or even the greatest). Â He raced during much of the 90’s until his career was cut short by a rollerskiing accident in which he injured his back. Â One of his biggest competitors during this time was Vladimir Smirnov (SOV, KAZ). Â Which […]
Tagged bjoern daehlie, head to head, vladimir smirnovSince the athlete rankings I calculated for cross country skiers seem to be fairly popular, I thought I’d push up the schedule on releasing the biathlon versions. The general methodology is the same as what I outlined here. Â Biathlon doesn’t have sprint races, so there’s just one category of rankings, instead of splitting things up […]
Tagged biathlon, rankingsThis is the final post in a four part series on rookie performance on the World Cup. Â To recap: we’re trying to quantify differences in the level of preparation among athletes from different nations upon first entering the World Cup circuit. Â A “rookie skier” for our purposes is one who’s done seven or fewer races […]
Tagged Analysis, rookies, Sprint, US Skiing, World CupA big hello to all the visitors I’ve had over the past week from nensa.net and fasterskier.com (and an super big thanks to those guys for linking to me!). Â And an extra special hello from the individual who landed here via a Google search for “petter northug sexy”. Â Can’t argue with you there, now can […]
Can I just say that if Google Analytics is hopelessly addictive for normal people, then for data-loving people like me it’s quite possibly the most addictive substance ever. Â One thing I’ve learned with the small amount of traffic I’ve had so far is that people seem to like the athlete rankings. Â At least, more than […]
Tagged rankingsThis is another installment in a series (see here and here for important background and setup; if you get confused read them first) where I’ve been looking at comparing performances of rookie skiers on the World Cup. Â In those previous two posts I looked at distance racing, so now it’s time to turn our attention […]
Tagged Analysis, rookies, Sprint, US Skiing, World Cup