real biathlon
    • Athletes
    • Teams
    • Races
    • Seasons
    • Scores
    • Records
    • Blog(current)
    • More
      Patreon Content Course Profiles Explanations Shortcuts
      Error Report
      Privacy Policy About
    •     
  • Forum
  • Patreon
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
    Instagram
    Facebook

Recent Articles

  • Most improved athletes this winter
  • New biathlon point system
  • Historic biathlon results create expectations. But what about points?
  • What do you expect? Practical applications of the W.E.I.S.E.
  • Introducing W. E. I. S. E: the Win Expectancy Index based on Statistical Exploration, version 1

Categories

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

Archives

  • 2022
    • December
    • June
    • May
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2021
    • December
    • November
    • September
    • July
    • June
    • May
    • April
    • March
    • February
    • January
  • 2020
    • December
    • November
    • August
    • June
    • March
  • 2015
    • December
  • 2013
    • August
    • July
  • 2012
    • July

Search Articles

Recent Tweets

Tweets by realbiathlon

New feature: Complete IBU Cup & Junior level data

Posted on 2021-09-29 | by real biathlon | Leave a Comment on New feature: Complete IBU Cup & Junior level data

The website already offered data for single races of below World Cup level events (IBU Cups, European Championships, IBU Junior Cups, Youth/Junior World Championships). Now you can also search for aggregated shooting and skiing data of IBU Cup seasons or junior level seasons, as well as updated athlete data, which includes all lower level IBU events.

The athletes, teams, races and seasons pages have been updated with a “Level” selection (sidebar) that allows you to switch between categories (competition levels: World Cup level, IBU Cup level, Junior level). For example: junior level races of last season.

The real biathlon database now includes the same seasonal data for IBU Cup seasons and junior seasons as it’s already available for all World Cup seasons. Below I listed the men’s performance scores for the 2020–21 IBU Cup. Interestingly, the scores for top IBU Cup athletes seem to be much closer to the mean (roughly one standard deviation better) than your average World Cup winner (-1.2 to -1.4) at the top international level.

Top overall performance scores | 2020–21 IBU Cup Men

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesRank
(avg)
Ski Speed
Score
Hit Rate
Score
Range Time
Score
Total
Performance
Score
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesRank
(avg)
Ski Speed
Score
Hit Rate
Score
Range Time
Score
Total
Performance
Score
1BakkenSivert GuttormNOR
159.5-0.84-1.22-1.57-1.04
2KhaliliSaid KarimullaRUS
66.3-0.84-1.66-0.36-1.02
3CappellariDanieleITA
1521.2-0.44-1.73-1.85-0.99
4AndersenFilip FjeldNOR
158.7-1.00-0.93-0.87-0.96
5AndersenAleksander FjeldNOR
1510.5-0.89-0.97-1.24-0.95
6StroemsheimEndreNOR
1212.2-0.92-0.69-1.50-0.93
7NawrathPhilippGER
1510.7-1.07-0.76-0.32-0.89
8TsymbalBogdanUKR
720.1-0.79-0.98-0.94-0.86
9StrelowJustusGER
1520.6-0.65-1.22-0.98-0.85
10PorshnevNikitaRUS
1418.4-0.62-1.44-0.52-0.84

The new data also allows you to compare athletes at different competition levels. Below you can see a comparison of junior level race results for Dzinara Alimbekava and Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold. Even though Tandrevold was by far the better junior (winning 5 individual youth/junior world championship medals), Alimbekava took last season’s first ever Under-25 score (blue bib), beating Tandrevold by 27 points.

Other useful additions include tables for Youth/Junior World Championships medals for all athletes, the possibility to compare season data for athletes at different levels (who is shooting better/worse at World Cup level?) and complete results lists (particularly useful for athletes that often change between World Cup and lower levels),

Posted in Website updates | Tagged Data

Biathlon World Cup wins | Men (1958 – 2021)

Posted on 2021-09-10 | by real biathlon | Leave a Comment on Biathlon World Cup wins | Men (1958 – 2021)

I have been experimenting with bar chart races lately. I think it’s an interesting visualization that gives a unique historical perspective that you don’t get by simply looking up records.

Here is one of my first attempts, non-team victories in men’s World Cup level races (Biathlon World Cup, World Championships, Olympics) from 1958- 2021. I hope you like it.

Women:

Posted in Biathlon Media, Long-term trends

New database search function

Posted on 2021-07-18 | by real biathlon | Leave a Comment on New database search function

I have been working on a new feature that allows to search the real biathlon database for all-time records, seasonal data/records or specific data subsets. You can search three separate categories: among all single races, aggregated seasonal data, and career statistics. I implemented a new web interface available in the Patreon section for more complex database searches that allows combined queries for multiple values/ranges.

Below are a few examples of possible queries:

Since 2001–02, there have been only 3 races in which an athlete topped all major stats (rank, ski rank, hit rate, shooting time): all these “perfect” races where done by Ole Einar Bjørndalen between 2001 and 2005. There hasn’t been a single race like this on the women’s side.

“Perfect” races, all time

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationDateLevelPlaceDisciplineRankSki RankTotal PercentShooting Time Rank
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationDateLevelPlaceDisciplineRankSki RankTotal PercentShooting Time Rank
1BjoerndalenOle EinarNOR
2001-12-06WCHochfilzenSP111001
2BjoerndalenOle EinarNOR
2004-12-11WCOslo HolmenkollenSP111001
3BjoerndalenOle EinarNOR
2005-01-23WCAntholz-AnterselvaPU111001
4BjoerndalenOle EinarNOR
2005-02-20WCPokljukaMS121002
5EberhardJulianAUT
2017-03-03WCPyeongChangSP121001

Who was the fastest skier ever? That’s difficult to answer, because results will always differ depending on your criteria. But the list of the top female skiers (per season) in terms of percent back from top 10 median isn’t a bad benchmark.

Kaisa Mäkäräinen, Magdalena Neuner and Darya Domracheva had 3 seasons each skiing at least 1.6% faster than the top 10 median. Interestingly, all seasons are from at least 6 years ago. Either the depth of the women’s field has increased a lot in just a couple of years, or there aren’t as many all-time great skiers in today’s field.

Fastest skiers (top 10 median back) | Women’s seasons

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSeason IdDisciplineYearSkiing Top 10 Median BackSki RankSpeed
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationRacesSeason IdDisciplineYearSkiing Top 10 Median BackSki RankSpeed
1MakarainenKaisaFIN
251415NonTeam2015-2.6382.423.01
2NeunerMagdalenaGER
250708NonTeam2008-2.5021.3222.255
3DomrachevaDaryaBLR
261112NonTeam2012-2.4542.34622.385
4DomrachevaDaryaBLR
251415NonTeam2015-2.0642.12522.852
5ZidekAnna CarinSWE
230506NonTeam2006-1.9992.43521.226
6DomrachevaDaryaBLR
241314NonTeam2014-1.891.91722.472
7NeunerMagdalenaGER
251112NonTeam2012-1.822.7222.261
8NeunerMagdalenaGER
211011NonTeam2011-1.7741.95222.14
9MakarainenKaisaFIN
261213NonTeam2013-1.7362.69222.404
10MakarainenKaisaFIN
261112NonTeam2012-1.7352.61522.211
11GoessnerMiriamGER
241213NonTeam2013-1.64.08322.375

Below are the fastest female shooters – average of all career shooting times (at least 10 races). Unsurprisingly, that list is dominated by current athletes, as shooting speed have increased considerably over the last decade. Julia Simon tops this ranking with a average 25.5s shooting time in her 80 career races to date.

Fastest shooters (below 27 sec) | Women’s career data

NoFamily NameGiven NameNationFirst YearLast YearRacesDisciplineTotal Shooting TimeTotal PercentRaces
NoFamily NameGiven NameNationFirst YearLast YearRacesDisciplineTotal Shooting TimeTotal PercentRaces
1SimonJuliaFRA
2017202180NonTeam25.47877.85780
2CadurischIreneSUI
2012202168NonTeam25.88879.04468
3KummerLuiseGER
2014201622NonTeam26.3587.04522
4MerkushynaAnastasiyaUKR
2015202176NonTeam26.51584.73776
5BankesMeganCAN
2017202143NonTeam26.62974.3943
6WiererDorotheaITA
20092021238NonTeam26.71985.506238
7GhilenkoAllaMDA
2017202136NonTeam26.82479.54536
8PojeUrskaSLO
2014202036NonTeam26.86884.58336

Posted in Website updates | Tagged Data

Arnd Peiffer: Biathlon Legend?

Posted on 2021-07-16 | by Brian Halligan | Leave a Comment on Arnd Peiffer: Biathlon Legend?

In this video I contemplate the idea that Arnd Peiffer might be a biathlon legend. By comparing his results to German biathlon legends from the past, it’s easy to see that Arnd had been earning impressive results through out his 13 year biathlon career. The Olympic Gold medalist from PyeongChang 2018 should be considered one of the biathlon greats.

Posted in Biathlon Media, Statistical analysis

Why the French weren’t more competitive

Posted on 2021-06-26 | by biathlonanalytics | Leave a Comment on Why the French weren’t more competitive

Introduction

After the 2019-2020 season, Martin Fourcade retired from biathlon, leaving a strong group of athletes on the French men’s team. They appeared ready to challenge the Norwegians, with Q Fillion Maillet and E Jacquelin the main contenders already having a good season and getting close in the 2019-2020 season. However, the 2020-2021 season turned out a little different, with still strong performances from all French team members, but it quickly felt they were not going to challenge for the yellow bib.

This analysis tries to find out where things stagnated for the French and prevented QFM and EJ from at least challenging for the crystal globe(s).

World Cup Points

First, I wanted to see how the World Cup Points compared to the eventual yellow bib winner, per season (which happened to be this fella called JT Boe all three seasons!). The charts below show Johannes Tingnes Boe in red, Quentin Fillon Maillet in dark blue and Emilien Jacquelin in light blue:

We can see that after closing the gap with JT Boe in the 2019-2020 season, it has widened again on the 2020-2021 season, mostly for QFM but to some degree for EJ as well. Now let’s look at the discipline level:

The Sprint and Pursuit events show the same story, being very close to Boe in 2019-2020 but losing ground in 2020-2021, especially in the sprint. In the Sprint, EJ is behind QFM in every season, but for the Pursuit EJ first follows, then equals and eventually surpasses QFM in the last season.

The Individual and Mass Starts were the events where most progress were made, as QFM actually does better than Boe in the last season and is very close in all three seasons in the Mass Start. EJ drops in the final season compared to the previous one.

Ski speed

Now let’s look at more detail, starting with ski speed compared to the field’s average. Note that the vertical axis is reversed, as -4 means 4% below the field average, which is a good thing, so it should be at the top.

It’s no surprise that JT Boe is the fastest of the three but where in 2019-2020 the Frenchmen were seemingly getting closer, the gap widened again in last season:

This was due to JT Boe being even faster, but both Frenchmen losing speed compared to the field average. They are still quite a bit faster than the field average, but clearly need to rely on shooting time and quality if they want to catch up. Let’s look at that next.

Range Time

Looking at the time on the range we can see this is where the French athletes gain time on Boe, not in the least due to Boe getting slower, but QFM and EJ are also getting faster from one season to the next. We noticed Boe having some shooting struggles, and I also clearly remember the super fast shooting by EJ at the World Championships. He also proved later in the season the fast shooting doesn’t always work out, but generally I would say the French are stronger here.

Of course a fast range time only works well when you hit most targets, so that the next thing we’ll look at.

Shooting Time and Percentage

The chart below shows combined Shooting Percentage from left to right and Shooting Time compared to Field Average from bottom to top. It then plots the three seasons per athlete to show the change and development from season to season. Generally EJ is in the top left corner, meaning he shoots fast but not most accurately. QFM has started shooting faster but lost some shooting quality. Boe is clearly the slower shooter of the three, and although his percentage was up in the 2019-2020 season, last season he dropped back to around 85%, the lowest of the three.

Conclusions

Since Boe is still by far the fastest skier, the Frenchmen needed to keep the distance in ski speed as small as possible, which they failed to do in the last season as the gap widened. They do perform better in the shooting range though and if Boe continues to struggle this would be an area where the Frenchmen can gain the most ground. Even if the existing difference in shooting speed and quality stays the same as last season, closing the gap a little on the skis will allow them to be more competitive again for the upcoming season. According to the guys at Sport in Depth (I wrote about them in my previous article), they will still end up behind Boe (and Laegreid). I can’t wait for the new season to get started so we can actually find out for ourselves!

Posted in Long-term trends, Statistical analysis | Tagged French, performance, review

Posts navigation

Older posts
Newer posts

Recent Articles

  • Most improved athletes this winter
  • New biathlon point system
  • Historic biathlon results create expectations. But what about points?
  • What do you expect? Practical applications of the W.E.I.S.E.
  • Introducing W. E. I. S. E: the Win Expectancy Index based on Statistical Exploration, version 1

Categories

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

Archives by Month

  • 2022: J F M A M J J A S O N D
  • 2021: J F M A M J J A S O N D
  • 2020: J F M A M J J A S O N D
  • 2015: J F M A M J J A S O N D
  • 2013: J F M A M J J A S O N D
  • 2012: J F M A M J J A S O N D

Search Articles