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Puck Possessed Biathlon

Puck Possessed issues about Biathlon

Getting the most out of Tableau dashboards

Long overdue, this short post helps users of the Youth and Junior Analysis and IBU Cup Analysis dashboards to use all features it provides. Since they work in pretty much the same way, I’m going to use the Youth and Junior Analysis one to demonstrate a few tips and tricks. On the main page of the dashboard we have a couple of features: #1 Tabs. You would be surprised how the first tab is much more viewed than any other tab, likely due that many users just don’t realize there are multiple tabs. Note that sometimes when the dashboard has… Read More »Getting the most out of Tableau dashboards

Athletes to look out for in the new season

This article looks at the new biathlon season using the Performance Score, which is explained in detail on RealBiathlon’s website. In short, it uses Ski speed, shooting speed and shooting accuracy in comparison to other athletes to eventually come to an indicator that shows if someone had a good race, disconnected from the actual results. It is important to know that a negative value is good, meaning faster skiing and shooting and better shooting. So remember: – = good And we should also set some references on what is good and what is not so good when it comes to… Read More »Athletes to look out for in the new season

Are they shooting faster than their shadows?

If you grew up with comic books like me, you may have heard of Lucky Luke, the cowboy who could shoot faster than his shadow: And when I think of fast shooting, I cannot think of anything else than Emilien Jacquelin’s standing shooting at the last World Championships, I believe it was the pursuit race: You may remember from earlier posts that I am not Jacquelin’s biggest fan by any stretch, but that doesn’t mean you can’t appreciate and respect something incredible! Anyway, it made me wonder about shooting times and how they possibly have changed in the last decade… Read More »Are they shooting faster than their shadows?

Norwegian Dominance

Leistungs Dichtheit, which I would translate as Proximity of Performance; how close to each other are athletes from the same nation in the world cup rankings?

When something’s gotta give: Shooting Speed vs Accuracy

Depending on the event, biathlon athletes fire 10 or 20 shots per race, with the goal to a) hit the target and b) do it as fast as possible. At first thought, you would think the longer you take per shot, the higher your chances of hitting it. But further analysis shows that this train of thought could be wrong.

Puckpossessed Biathlon #7 Canadians

I reviewed the IBU Biathlon data for Canadian performances since the 2000-2001 season and wrote an article. To see the full quality file, download the PDF below. The preview below that is low quality to keep the file a decent size and give an idea what the file looks like. I hope you enjoy.

Biathlon Course Time Strategy

Looking at the Course Times per Race and Season, I noticed some strong differences in what laps are faster and slower: For example, Oslo starts fast (the course times are shown in seconds, so the lower the value, the faster the ski) but ends really slow, with a significance time difference. Oberhof on the other hand gets faster as the race goes on. Initially I wondered if these trends were influenced by tactics based on weather conditions, but looking a the chart above it is clear the the trends are strongly dependent on the location / stadium / course. I… Read More »Biathlon Course Time Strategy