Back in September I wrote a post looking at the supposed woes of Norway’s male distance team. Â The bottom line was that, yes, by various measures things haven’t been looking as good lately for the Norwegian men’s distance squad. Â With the first period of racing completed, and more rumblings in Norway about their poor performance, […]
Also tagged Distance, norway, podiums, russia, sweden, victories, World CupContinuing on from my last post on North American distance skiers, let’s jump right in with the sprinters, starting with the men: No fancy metrics here, just what place people finished in. Â Once again, red is this season, blue is last year’s Olympics. Â Alex Harvey’s sprint race in Kuusamo was unusually good for him. Â Simi […]
Also tagged midseason, review, Sprint, women, World CupWith the first period of WC racing in the books and the next one just around the corner, I’m going to look back at the results of the North American skiers so far this season. Â The theme of this post is context and expectations. One of the reasons that I started this blog was that […]
Also tagged canada, Distance, median, midseason, percent back, review, USA, womenMy post on the differing performance of Japanese skiers by technique (classic vs. freestyle) got a lot of positive responses and a few requests that I use the same methods on some other countries. Â First up is Italy. I’ve tweaked and refined my model a fair bit, hopefully for the better. Â The basic idea is […]
Also tagged Analysis, Distance, italy, Sprint, technical, technique preference, womenPicking up from my post yesterday, we’ll move on to Kris Freeman: Freeman told FasterSkier that blood sugar issues weren’t a problem, but that he simply didn’t have a great race on Saturday. Â Well, it’s quite clear from this percent-back difference plot what happens when he does have blood sugar problems, as he did last […]
Also tagged Distance, freestyle, la clusaz, mass start, recap, World CupSaturday was the first long mass start race of the World Cup season in La Clusaz, France, and along with mass start races come difficulties in measuring performance in a sensible manner. Â The women’s field didn’t help matters by having the top three ski away from the field. So you end up with some odd […]
Also tagged curdin perl, daniel rickardsson, Distance, freestyle, la clusaz, mass start, recap, riitta-liisa roponen, therese johaug, women, World CupSolid day for North America with 5 in the heats, and of course Kikkan’s second sprint podium of the season. Â Just watched the video of the women’s final and there’s no question Kowalczyk changed lanes when she wasn’t supposed to. Â Definitely hindered Randall, but I’m not sure she would have caught Follis.
Also tagged Davos, race snapshot, Sprint, women, World Cup