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Month: December 2020

Support real biathlon on Patreon

Posted on 2020-12-04 | by real biathlon | 2 Comments on Support real biathlon on Patreon

You can now support real biathlon on PATREON. For your troubles, you get bonus statistics, direct database access and the knowledge that your support helps keep the website running and all statistics up to date.

Frankly, I feel a bit strange asking for contributions, but after some pretty high traffic for this site during the initial World Cup weekend, I fear that after putting a lot of time into this project in the summer, I now might have to pay for it in the winter – specifically covering costs for exceeding free-tier database limits. The ads on this site don’t generate a lot of money, so after thinking about it for a while, I decided to give this Patreon idea a try.

Since I didn’t just want to ask for donations with nothing in return, I came up with a few Patreon rewards I believe should be interesting for biathlon enthusiasts. I added a new page realbiathlon.com/patreon – you can get the password as a patron. Also, there’s the option to get direct database access; if that’s something you are interested in.

These are the bonus statistics I set up initially (there will probably be more later):

  • Stats per Nation: All-time results and data for each country in individual events
  • Season-to-Season Changes: Comparisons across seasons for most athlete statistics
  • Race Projections: Predictions for each discipline and event based on season stats
  • Long-term trends: Performance trends in ski speed, shooting accuracy and shooting pace

I hope most of these additional stats are quite useful and interesting. I compiled another data set for each national team, but this time with results not for relays, but for all non-team events per nation, including (averaged) shooting and skiing data.

France Men | Top 3 per race (10 race moving average)

Here are two examples of available bonus statistics: The first chart shows the French results declining a lot after Raphaël Poirée‘s retirement, but currently they are doing a lot better compensating for Martin Fourcade‘s absence. Germany’s women on the other hand had their peak in the mid-2000s (with over 20% of their athletes on the podium), and a steep decline after Magdalena Neuner‘s retirement.

Germany Women | Results per race

I have already used some of the other stats I created in recent posts, namely Ski Speed comparison season-to-season or Projection for the season opener; that should give you an idea what to expect (available for many other categories and seasons). Examples for long term biathlon trends can be seen here.

Should you be interested in digging into the data for yourself, I set up a way to allow direct access to the real biathlon databases in several programming languages (Java, Python, C#, C++, C, R) – please keep in mind you will need at least some programming skill to utilize them. All are MongoDB (NoSQL) databases hosted on MongoDB Atlas (data is in JSON format).

One thing I was especially unsure about was finding appropriate tier levels. I set up the higher tiers more as a joke – please only consider them if you are looking for a quick way to get rid of your money. 😉

real biathlon on PATREON

Posted in Website updates

Ski Speed comparison season-to-season

Posted on 2020-12-02 | by real biathlon | 5 Comments on Ski Speed comparison season-to-season

It’s probably no use to look at shooting percentages after only 30 shots at the beginning of a season, however, the ski speed at the first World Cup weekend might already tell us at least a little bit where the season is going and how the ski form for some of the top athletes might have changed over the summer.

If you can’t find a specific athlete, you can always look up complete World Cup statistics for the ongoing season here:

  • Ski speed: Men | Women
  • Shooting percentage: Men | Women
  • Shooting Times: Men | Women

Note: Only athletes with at least 15 races last season and 2 races this season are included in the two tables below. “Back from Top30 median” is the percentage back from each race’s top 30 median Course Time (arithmetic mean per season).


Men

Sergey Bocharnikov was the most improved overall; he skied 4.7% faster and lowered his average ski rank by 38.7. Maybe even more impressive though, Sebastian Samuelsson and Martin Ponsiluoma both improved by 3.7%, and did so on a much higher level. Surprise winner Sturla Holm Lægreid does not show up here, because he only appeared in 4 races last season, however, he did improve his speed by 1.7%

Johannes Thingnes Bø continued where he left off: he was not simply the fastest overall (over 1% ahead of the 2nd fastest, his brother Tarjei Bø), he also set the top Course Time in both races. One of the pre-season favorites, Quentin Fillon Maillet, shot great (96.7%), but did not have the best weekend skiing-wise (his average ski rank increased from 5.6 to 15.0). Dmytro Pidruchnyi struggled the most, he was 3.3% slower than last season.

Changes in Ski Speed compared to 2019–20 season

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSki Rank
(avg)
Changeback from
Top30 median
(in %)
Change
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSki Rank
(avg)
Changeback from
Top30 median
(in %)
Change
1BocharnikovSergeyBLR
210.5-38.7-0.99-4.67
2SamuelssonSebastianSWE
23.5-25.2-2.23-3.69
3PonsiluomaMartinSWE
24.5-22.6-2.16-3.67
4NelinJesperSWE
28.5-16.1-0.95-1.89
5FakJakovSLO
217.5-12.5+0.10-1.58
6MoravecOndrejCZE
231.5-8.2+1.45-1.37
7ChristiansenVetle SjaastadNOR
29.5-7.6-1.26-1.26
8BoeTarjeiNOR
23.0-5.0-2.48-1.15
9BauerKlemenSLO
236.0-10.2+2.17-1.10
10JacquelinEmilienFRA
26.5-5.2-1.41-0.92
11BoeJohannes ThingnesNOR
21.0-2.0-3.61-0.71
12ClaudeFlorentBEL
237.0-3.2+2.37-0.58
13ClaudeFabienFRA
212.5-2.5-0.44-0.48
14RastorgujevsAndrejsLAT
218.0+0.4+0.16-0.31
15LoginovAlexanderRUS
213.5-4.0-0.21-0.28
16HoferLukasITA
217.5+1.8-0.09-0.20
17DaleJohannesNOR
210.0+0.2-1.28-0.09
18PeifferArndGER
216.5+0.9-0.13-0.08
19IlievVladimirBUL
224.0+2.0+0.72+0.02
20KrcmarMichalCZE
232.0+4.8+1.51+0.02
21SeppalaTeroFIN
232.5+4.7+1.62+0.29
22EliseevMatveyRUS
235.5+7.9+2.39+0.31
23WegerBenjaminSUI
234.0+5.3+2.00+0.43
24LeitnerFelixAUT
230.0+6.5+1.36+0.47
25GuigonnatAntoninFRA
232.5+10.5+1.66+0.52
26BjoentegaardErlendNOR
216.5+6.4+0.08+0.97
27DesthieuxSimonFRA
221.0+8.7+0.40+1.04
28EderSimonAUT
245.0+9.5+3.60+1.35
29PrymaArtemUKR
243.0+14.6+3.13+1.48
30Fillon MailletQuentinFRA
215.0+9.4-0.30+1.76
31DollBenediktGER
225.0+15.1+0.92+1.92
32EberhardJulianAUT
229.5+18.4+1.38+2.09
33KuehnJohannesGER
223.5+16.8+0.79+2.14
34FemlingPeppeSWE
265.5+17.9+5.54+2.31
35PidruchnyiDmytroUKR
257.0+33.1+4.59+3.33

Women

Among regular starters, Elvira Öberg was by far the most improved, 3.7% faster than last season. Her sister Hanna Öberg also improved a lot; the Kontiolahti sprint was her first ever race setting the top ski time. Lisa Theresa Hauser and Franziska Preuß also got considerably faster, but their improvement might not have been as obvious, because both hit only 25 out of 30 targets (83.3%), some 3-5% below their shooting percentage from last winter.

Lena Häcki, Julia Simon and Monika Hojnisz-Staręga all struggled to get going, skiing at least 3% slower. Hojnisz-Staręga had a particularly bad season opening, her average ski rank was 46.5 higher than last season, 5.0% behind her ski speed from last winter. Alongside the Öberg sisters, Tiril Eckhoff was fastest overall (but only managed a 66.7% hit rate). Last year’s top skier, Denise Herrmann, was not at her peak speed yet (+1.2%), however, her career-high 86.7% hit rate looks promising.

Changes in Ski Speed compared to 2019–20 season

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSki Rank
(avg)
Changeback from
Top30 median
(in %)
Change
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSki Rank
(avg)
Changeback from
Top30 median
(in %)
Change
1OebergElviraSWE
23.5-22.0-2.07-3.68
2HauserLisa TheresaAUT
216.0-18.7+0.16-1.93
3OebergHannaSWE
23.5-10.6-2.02-1.63
4PreussFranziskaGER
212.0-10.2-0.26-0.92
5TalihaermJohannaEST
250.0-4.3+3.85-0.64
6TandrevoldIngrid LandmarkNOR
26.0-6.7-1.18-0.63
7BrorssonMonaSWE
222.5-5.3+0.65-0.62
8GasparinAitaSUI
247.0+3.8+3.34-0.11
9KryukoIrynaBLR
227.5-1.0+1.58-0.09
10LunderEmmaCAN
240.5+2.0+2.70-0.09
11CharvatovaLucieCZE
226.0+1.1+1.43-0.05
12DavidovaMarketaCZE
210.5-0.3-0.55+0.28
13Braisaz-BouchetJustineFRA
26.5+0.7-1.71+0.30
14BescondAnaisFRA
217.5+0.1+0.40+0.33
15EckhoffTirilNOR
24.0-1.5-2.15+0.35
16GasparinElisaSUI
261.5+11.3+4.42+0.64
17PerssonLinnSWE
226.5+3.9+1.50+0.69
18EderMariFIN
216.5+3.0+0.07+0.71
19RiederChristinaAUT
272.5+14.2+6.25+0.92
20SanfilippoFedericaITA
247.0+8.4+3.54+1.07
21InnerhoferKatharinaAUT
225.0+6.6+1.37+1.12
22PuskarcikovaEvaCZE
255.5+18.4+4.10+1.12
23HerrmannDeniseGER
26.5+3.9-1.85+1.18
24ZbylutKingaPOL
271.0+18.1+5.81+1.63
25OjaReginaEST
279.5+20.2+7.41+1.90
26ZukKamilaPOL
238.0+17.5+2.42+2.05
27WiererDorotheaITA
225.0+15.0+1.33+2.32
28HinzVanessaGER
250.5+27.4+3.62+2.58
29VittozziLisaITA
243.5+23.5+3.27+2.74
30KuklinaLarisaRUS
258.0+22.7+5.03+2.77
31SemerenkoVitaUKR
273.5+28.5+6.25+2.89
32HaeckiLenaSUI
245.5+28.6+3.35+3.17
33SimonJuliaFRA
247.5+33.0+3.28+3.38
34Hojnisz-StaregaMonikaPOL
263.5+46.5+4.87+5.01
Posted in Statistical analysis | Tagged 2020–21 season, ski speed, skiing

Shooting Speed

Posted on 2020-12-02 | by biathlonanalytics | Leave a Comment on Shooting Speed

An analysis of shooting speed in biathlon, using the women’s individual race in Kontiolahti as an example. The data came from the real biathlon website, here is the exact link.

To get this data in a workable format, I just copied the table, pasted it in a text editor and copied/pasted that to Google Sheets. From there I had to do some splitting and moving things around but it was still fairly easy to get a working table. The only time consuming part was manually assigning hits or misses, and for that reason I only did to for the top 30 athletes. Then I added som ecalcualtion for athlete averages, max and min shooting times, etc. Although that can be done in Tableau, I find once you start working with filters etc. in becomes unnessessarily compicated in Tableau, just much easier to calculate the fields in Google Sheets.

Just a reminder the Tableau Dashboard below is interactive and intended to be used for further exploration of data. If you open it on the Tableau Public site you can use it full screen. Enjoy!

Posted in Statistical analysis | Tagged data visualization, Puck Possessed, shooting

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Recent Articles

  • Junior + U23 Development Index – Men
  • Junior + U23 Development Index – Women
  • The Path to GOAT Status
  • Most improved athletes this winter
  • New biathlon point system

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  • Biathlon News
  • Long-term trends
  • Statistical analysis
  • Website updates

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