Statistical Skier

Another down week with World Cup action on the cross-country side of things, but Drammen and World Champs are just around the corner.

• Last weekend saw the return of the Rybinsk World Cups, a pursuit and a sprint. We also had the first weekend of biathlon World Cups over here in the US with some pursuits and sprints; and then more sprints this week.
• I editorialized somewhat on the recurring complaints about the strengths and weaknesses of athlete ranking lists.
• We assessed just how well (or poorly) the Rybinsk races were, along with recapping some of the specific performances.
• I also checked in on some of the US results from the Scandinavian Cup races over the past few weekends.
• I weighed in, lightly, on the somewhat odd debate that flared up at FasterSkier over whether men and women should race the same distances.
• I decided that some graphs I made for looking at the performance of the Norwegian men’s distance team were interesting enough to apply to several other nations as well.
• Finally, I lamented the fact that cross country’s sprint racing format involves five quarterfinal heats. I feel dirty just writing that.