Statistical Skier

Happy (Almost) New Year!  And thanks once again to Skadi Nordic for sponsoring this week in review.  As the Tour de Ski get’s rolling, here’s what we’ve been up to this week:

• We looked a bit more closely at the link between qualifying in the top ten and going on to do well in the finals in sprint racing.
• Upon a reader’s request, I followed up my earlier technique preference post for Japan by examining the Italians with some interesting results, I thought.  A similar post for Norway is in the pipeline.
• Before the second bout of World Cup action got under way I snuck in some mid-season recaps for the North American skiers, both sprint and distance.
• As a short preview for the Tour de Ski I made some bump charts for last year’s Tour, just to see how things played out last year.
• I revisited a post from a while back looking at the “struggles” of the Norwegian men’s distance skiers (which, as an American, I’m required to place in quotations; I understand that they’re struggling compared to what they are used to), updating it to include the results so far this season.
• Finally, since the Tour de Ski officially kicked off today, we had a race snapshot post for the prologue, despite the difficulties of comparing the prologue to other races.

I had planned to post something looking at the North American domestic scene, but some of the last races in December were slow to appear on the FIS site, and then it was Christmas and now US Nationals are right around the corner.  So I have some stuff thought out on that subject, but at this point it probably makes more sense to wait until after US Nationals and assess where we are then.

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