Woo hoo! Another classic specialist! Ivan Batory has been around the block a few times. The first WC race I have for him is all the way back in the 1994 season. Let’s see, I think I was a freshmen in high school that year. Among Batory’s top 30 results, 63 were classic, 31 freestyle […]
Also tagged career retrospective, classic specialist, ivan batory, men, slovakiaA skier after my own heart, he was! Skating? Bah! That’s for losers! Hjelmeset was the quintessential classic specialist: If you’re basically only going to do classic races, you’d better be pretty good at them, and Hjelmeset certainly was. His World Cup career included 119 classic starts, only 26 freestyle starts and another 9 pursuits […]
Also tagged career retrospective, classic, men, odd-bjoern hjelmesetThis is by no means a comprehensive look at how we fared this year, just one perspective based on a single graph. One of the things that I pay closest attention to is depth: how many different skiers do we have performing at a particular level. The reason for this is that for relatively “small” […]
Also tagged 2011-2012, Analysis, canada, men, north america, season recap, USA, womenHopefully there won’t be any more posts like this for a long while. Fredrik Karlsson died recently, I guess in a snowmobile accident. I didn’t know much about him, but I guess he was on Sweden’s development team. As you might expect for someone on Sweden’s development team, he hadn’t quite made a huge splash […]
Also tagged fredrik karlsson, men, swedenUnfortunately, we have a distinct theme for this week’s posts. Jenny Olsson also passed away recently, apparently from breast cancer. She raced, quite successfully, for Sweden for much of the mid-00’s: These are just her WC level distance results (she didn’t sprint much). As you can see, 2002-2003 was her best effort, but […]
Also tagged jenny olsson, sweden, womenIn some very sad news, we learned recently that Inge Braten passed away rather suddenly. It is difficult (and probably slightly foolish) to try to quantify a coach’s impact on skiing results, so let’s consider this post a rememberance, rather than an analysis. Perhaps most famously, Braten coached the Norwegian men during their “Golden Era”: (My […]
Also tagged canada, coaches, inge braten, men, norway, swedenLast in the series of most improved/unimproved we finally turn to the women’s sprinters: Alena Prochazkova took a major tumble this season in sprints. She had been a fairly reliable presence in the semifinals until this season, when she appeared to often have trouble qualifying. Celine Brun-Lie also saw a major drop-off, but the much […]
Also tagged most unimproved, season recap, Sprint, women