The Crystal Globes are handed out to biathletes who, at the end of the season, have scored the most points in all non-team events combined (Overall), and for each discipline (Sprint, Pursuit, Individual and Mass Start). This post analyses the Globes in the last 25 seasons based on a Trigger request by Kristen K.
Globe Winners
Over the last 25 seasons, from 1998/99 to 2022/23, we had 50 Overall Globe winners, split between women and men. The visual below shows that nine of those not only won the Overall Globe, but also the four Discipline Globes in that season. Tora Berger has the honour to have won the Overall Globe but not a single Discipline Globe in the 2013/14 season.
Winners per season
When we look at the number of individual winners of any Globe per gender and season, it’s interesting that we have never had a season yet where every Globe went to one unique athlete (which would have shown as 5 Globe winners for that season). Note that although M. Fourcade won all five Globes in the 2017/18 season, he shared the Individual Discipline Globe with J. Boe, showing as two athletes.
Most Globes per athlete
As we are looking at the last 25 seasons it should come as no surprise that two familiar names are at the top of the athletes with the most Globes: Martin Fourcade and Ole Einar Bjoerndalen. They were active for a large portion of this timeframe, and quite successful! Note that Johannes Thingnes Boe is “only” at 13 Globes, but it wouldn’t shock anybody if a few more will be added in the upcoming seasons.
Most Globes per Nation
The data of the above visual can also be displayed per Nation, as shown below. Again, the usual suspects show up a the top although Italy was a bit lower than I expected.
Best seasons
If we define the best season an Overall Globe winning athlete can have is being ranked #1 for each Globe, we can give that athlete a Rank-score of 5 (5×1). As we saw earlier this happened nine times in the last 25 seasons, including Martin Fourcade four times and Magdalena Forsberg twice.
In the previously mentioned unique season by Tora Berger, she won the Overall Globe, got 2nd in the Sprint and Pursuit Globes, was 4th in the Mass Start Globe and 10th for the Individual Globe, scoring (1+2+2+4+10) 19.
It should be noted that in this analysis the Globes are all weighted the same which, based on the number of races per Discipline, is not quite fair perhaps.
U25 athletes
Athletes that are under the age of 25 on December 31st in a season qualify for the U25 category. In a sport with a component that can take a long time to master, if possible at all, competitors that do well while in the U25 category are quite exceptional. To win an Overall Globe while 24 or younger is a huge accomplishment, that the following seven athletes were able to achieve. And Martin Fourcade and Magdalena Neuner even did so twice and three times respectively for eight Globes each while under the age of 24.
Pursuit in the bag?
This Trigger request’s final question was if winning the Sprint Globe often goes hand in hand with winning the Pursuit Globe, as winning a Sprint race starts you with an advantage in the following Pursuit race. From the data for the 25 seasons analyzed, 28 athletes that won the Sprint Globe also won the Pursuit Globe, and the remaining 22 Sprint Globe winners did not. That is “only” 56%, and knowing some athletes do much better at pursuing (or being pursued) than others, winning the Spring Globe is not a automatic win of the Pursuit globe as well.
This concludes the analysis. If you have any questions or feedback please send me an email or connect on Twitter or Instagram. Or submit your own Trigger Request!