I received an email recently asking about field strength for the men’s and women’s WC fields, particularly as it applies to mass start races. Lately we’ve seen the men’s field engage in a fair bit of pack skiing, whereas the women’s field strings out more quickly. First, I want to dispatch with a common bit […]
Also tagged charlotte kalla, competitiveness, field strength, justyna kowalczyk, men vs women, therese johaug, World CupSo I guess I need to post something again about how many WC “victories” Marit Bjørgen has, ground that we’ve covered in considerable depth before. The occasion for revisiting this topic is FIS’s press release trumpeting the fact that Bjørgen has officially reached 46 WC victories, matching the great Björn Dæhlie. As we discussed in […]
Also tagged Distance, Sprint, statistics, victories, World CupDoogiski over at NordicXplained has a good post up regarding the rivalry (such as it is) between Marit Bjørgen and Justyna Kowlaczyk. The issue between the fans of these two great skiers is the question of which one is better. Shocker, I know. Doogiski gives a good rundown of some of the limitations of comparing […]
Also tagged justyna kowalczyk, rivalryAfter reviewing yesterday’s sprint race in Drammen, Norway it’s time to get caught up on the distance racing action from the day before. And lucky for you I’m going to use some new graphs that I’ve been working on for a while. They’re similar to the biathlon graphs I introduced last week, with a few […]
Also tagged classic, daniel rickardsson, Distance, drammen, men, recap, women, World CupMarit Björgen returned to action this weekend in (mostly) convincing fashion. It’s becoming very interesting to see whether anyone will be able to beat her in a distance race. She certainly has shown some chinks sprinting, with Kikkan Randall stealing a freestyle win and Petra Majdic grabbing a classic victory yesterday. But with another World […]
Also tagged bente skari martinsen, elena vaelbe, median percent backHow embarrassing is it for our sport that no one seems to be able to reliably count the number of World Cup victories of our best athletes? Here’s the deal.  Marit Björgen has attracted some attention lately for the number of total WC victories to her name, which is generally thought to be at least […]
Also tagged bente skari martinsen, bjoern daehlie, counting, fis, rant, records, victories, World CupMarit Bjørgen commented somewhere that her win at the WC opener in Gällivare, SWE was “the best skate race of her life”.  Sadly, I can’t find where I read that, otherwise I’d have a link for you.  Obviously, I found that kind of intriguing.  Let’s look at Bjørgen’s race in a bit more detail: This […]
Also tagged freestyle, margin of victory