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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you can’t find a specific athlete, you can always look up complete World Cup statistics for the ongoing season here:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Sergey Bocharnikov<\/a> 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<\/a> and Martin Ponsiluoma<\/a> both improved by 3.7%, and did so on a much higher level. Surprise winner Sturla Holm L\u00e6greid<\/a> does not show up here, because he only appeared in 4 races last season, however, he did improve his speed by 1.7%<\/p>\n\n\n\n Johannes Thingnes B\u00f8<\/a> continued where he left off: he was not simply the fastest overall (over 1% ahead of the 2nd fastest, his brother Tarjei B\u00f8<\/a>), he also set the top Course Time in both races. One of the pre-season favorites, Quentin Fillon Maillet<\/a>, 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<\/a> struggled the most, he was 3.3% slower than last season. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Changes in Ski Speed compared to 2019\u201320 season<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\nMen<\/h2>\n\n\n\n