As the biathlon summer events are coming and going, it is time to look at the upcoming (winter) season! I am curious to see if any athletes were getting better towards the end of last season and if they can continue their upward trend in the upcoming season. But first things first, let’s look at last season’s number of World Cup Points (all non-team race results included), and how many points on average the athletes got per race.
Unfortunately, biathlonresults.com only provides points after removing the worst two results, but luckily RealBiathlon makes this easy to find under Seasons. Or you can load the results in Tableau and figure them out that way:
Both JT Boe and Laegreid stand out, with over 45 and almost 44 points per race on average, but some other athletes may be more surprising: Peiffer only had 22 races but scored almost 30 points on average, Bjoentegaard had an average of 24 for the 10 races he did, and Anderson had a little over 22 points on average in his 6 races.
Now let’s look at a moving average of the points per race, considering the last 5 races. The chart below is interactive, so you select other athletes in the dropdown to make them stand out:
This gives a clear overview of the average results of the selected athlete, but it’s hard to see all other athletes, so let’s “zoom in” on the chart a little, focussing on the top skiers at the end of last season:
What I am looking for here is athletes whose line is trending from bottom left to top right at the end of the season, or at least in that direction, allowing me to get a sense of athletes who ended strong last season and may be looking to continue their incline in the upcoming season. Take for example Lukas Hofer and Antonin Guigonnat:
Hofer had a solid season and ended really strong. If he can continue this trend he could be challenging for top spots throughout 2021-2022. Although Guigonnat is a bit lower in the standings and participated in fewer races, his incline is strong and if he can continue this trend he may be able to deliver a couple of surprise results. Especially with Fillon Maillet and Jacquelin coming off underwhelming seasons (compared to expectations), Guigonnat may get his chances. Desthieux is another Frenchman to keep an eye on and what can A F Anderson do if he gets to start more races?
Who are your outliers for next season, and who can make it to the top other than the “usual suspects”? Or do you see any top athletes falling down from the top? Feel free to leave a comment, or message me on Twitter (@biathlonanalyt1).