Another Day at the Office for Bjørgen

With air temperatures around 2.5°C and the snow temperature at a crisp -1.5°C, it was a great day for the opening of the new World Cup season. There was a lot of artificial snow produced to get this race off and the loop had a 25cm base which was packed on top of the Sjusjøen roller-ski loop. Today also was the first time the FIS was able to run their new starting protocol with high FIS point athletes alternating with low FIS point athletes in the start list so the big athletes will get more TV time.

THE RACE

The first real pace setter on the day was the Norwegian junior Martine Ek Hagen who went through the 2.5km time check at a hair over six minutes.  Hagen was topped by fellow junior Heidi Weng by less than a second before the biathlete Tore Berger took five seconds out of the lead. The Norwegians continued to drop that first intermediate time as Østberg was through 2.5km 0.2 seconds faster than the biathlete. The Norwegian lead was temporarily halted as Randall had a very strong start and was just sliver ahead of Østberg.

After about 50 starters, the track started to become very crowded since the athletes had to do the loop three times with groups of up to five athletes on different laps skiing together. As Steira took the 2.5km intermediate from the lead from Randall, it was Stephens at the finish line to put up the first decent time of 25:52. Just after Steira went by the time check, Skofterud took another four seconds out at 2.5km and dropped the time to 5:47. It took a few more athletes before Kristoffersen took the lead and dropped the time by a second.

Further up the course, the race was beginning to take shape as Tore Berger continued to put the hammer down as athletes were starting to drop off her pace at the intermediate splits. Randall was one of the few athletes doing a good job to stay within a few seconds Berger’s time.

Back at the finish, Weng took 12 seconds out of the lead. However, only three bibs later Berger blazed the final home stretch and took a massive 35 seconds out of Weng for a new lead time of 25:05.

To get an early reading on how Bjørgen was going, she took an amazing 6.7 seconds out of Kristoffersen’s time at 2.5km. Worryingly for Polish ski fans, Kowalczyk was already a big 17 seconds behind her rival at the first time check. To show how impressive the Norwegians were, with all the athletes through the 2.5km, Norway held seven of the top nine spots.

As more and more athletes came across the finish-line, more athletes failed to beat Berger’s time until bib 47 in Skofterud came through and took 14 seconds out of the biathlete and became the first athlete to go under 25 minutes on the day in 24:51.

Back on course, Skofterud’s intermediate times were the real place markers and at 6.9km, the likes of Kalla and Johaug were both slower, but Bjørgen wasn’t as she took a massive 14 seconds out of her teammate. At the same time check, Kowalczyk continued to go backwards and was a horrible 41 seconds behind Bjørgen sitting in ninth place. With all the athletes through, it was eight Norwegians (Bjørgen, Skofterud, Steira, Kristoffersen, Johaug, Jacobsen and Østberg) in the top 11 and only Kalla in third place as the only non-Norwegian in the top seven.

The race between Kalla and Skofterud was heating up and with the information Kalla got from her coaches, she was able to erase the 5.5 second hole she was in at 6.9km to beat Skofterud by 1.9 seconds. Kalla held the lead only for short while as Bjørgen came across the line an amazing 27 seconds ahead of Kalla to earn her first of many victories this season.

RESULTS

1. Marit Bjørgen
2. Charlotte Kalla
3. Vibeke Skofterud

Analysis

Well in one way, today finished a lot like we thought and a lot different at the same time. Bjørgen won the race and almost everybody expected that, but by how much she won today is a little worrying for the rest of the women’s field. 27 seconds ahead of the next athlete is a huge gap and the question if anyone can close it will have to wait until next weekend.

It was truly a great race by Skofterud today to earn third. Looking at her FIS profile, it’s interesting to see all her individual podiums dating back to 2003 have come in the first month of the World Cup season, either in Beitøstolen, Kuusamo, Gallivare or Davos. Hopefully, she’ll be able to continue this good form right into 2012.

The talent of Norway’s women’s team is nothing short of spectacular. Today has got to be one of the most dominating performances by a nation in recent history. If it wasn’t for Kalla and her 2^nd place, Norway would’ve swept the top six positions. They still managed to earn nine of the top 13 spots which is almost unheard of these days in the sport.

The American team have to be really excited about how Randall (8^th) and Stephens (18^th) skied today. I believe those are both career best placings in distance races which is a great way to start the season.

The biggest news for me today though was the Russian women, it’s been well documented that their women’s side is weak, but today has got to sound some alarms and inject some panic in the Russian ski federation. Not a single woman finished inside the top 30 today with Nikolaeva the best at 39^th. Also, Khazova in 44^th is shocking and unacceptable and for a woman who had such a strong season two years ago, being 2:23 behind the lead is very troublesome.

I know I put a lot of light on Kowalczyk or her short comings, but her rivalry IS the rivalry in skiing right now. Kowalczyk has some serious work to do because being 1:12 behind Bjørgen is a huge chunk of time. Some of that lost time can be accounted for the fact that the snow was extremely hard and crusty which made it much harder to balance today and we all know how Kowalczyk deals with balance problems on skis… #bambi.

I’ll be back in a bit with the men’s recap.

#9: Poland – All About Justyna

Nations Cup Position:  2339pts (9^th)

Men: 101 (16^th)

Women: 2238 (6^th)

It’s truly a one-woman show in Poland, and the Polish supporters couldn’t be happier about their superstar. What can Kowalczyk do? Well she can win any race she enters… only if Bjørgen decided to not race on that day. This season, Bjørgen will undoubtedly  be entering more races which means more fuel for flame of the rivalry that had increase greatly over the past couple season with she-said-she-said accusations. The Pole will be looking to topple the Norwegian ski queen and prove that she is the fastest female skier in the world, regardless if she wins the World Cup overall or not.

MEN’S SPRINT

With the retirement of Janusz Krezelok after the 2009-2010 season, Poland lost the “1” in their men’s sprinting 1-2 punch and were left with Maciej Kreczmer. At the age of 29-years old, Kreczmer should be hitting his prime but the sprint specialist will be one of those athletes that will be outside the top 30 more often than not. Last year he managed to qualify only three times out of 10 times.

WOMEN’S SPRINT

The retirement of Follis, Majdic and Muranan (Majdic and Follis finished 1^st and 2^nd in the sprint standings); the talent in the sprint discipline has dropped considerably which should make it even easier for Kowalczyk to make the podium in the sprint races; something she did only twice last season. With the departure of three big sprinters for the world stage, make Bjørgen, Kowalczyk and one other skier a lock for 90% of the sprint races this year.

MEN’S DISTANCE

The men’s distance squad is almost as feeble as their sprint team. Only one athlete managed to score points and that was Mariusz Mihalek who finished in the top 30 twice last campaign for a grand total of seven World Cup points.

WOMEN’S DISTANCE

Again; Kowalczyk. The only question is whether she’ll runaway with the distance title like last year or not. I’m thinking it’ll be a little closer since Bjørgen will be entering more races as she has not Championships to peak for this year. It’ll be interesting to see if/how Kowalczyk alters her tactics to try to beat  Bjørgen this year. She’s always skied full-stop pacing, no real tactics other than an “I’ll break you, before you break me” mentality that has been showcased many times before as she pulls away from the competition after pushing what seems like an un-maintainable pace.

The other women on the Pol distance squad are Paulina Maciuszek who amassed 25pts last year and will probably be Kowalczyk’s partner when it comes to team sprint time.

THE FUTURE

Do you want the good news or bad news first? Well the good news is that Kowalczyk is 28 years-old and has many more years of successful skiing ahead of her. The bad news is that Poland’s up and coming skiers are nearly non-existent. There is one female by the name of Ewelina Marcisz, who did quite well at WJC and skied to an impressive 5^th in the 10km pursuit. She will probably get a few World Cup starts this year, but at the age of 19, she is still a few years away from making a real impact in the big leagues.

THE VERDICT

Poland will once again be the definition you see when you look-up one person team in the dictionary and that fact won’t be changing anytime soon. Kowalczyk will be the face of Polish cross-country skiing for many years to come. What worries me about this team is the dearth of talent coming from the men’s side, but as long as they Kowalczyk winning races, that fact can be swept under the rug for the time being.

A Little Clarity to the Situation

Who is Better?

This year saw the Kowalczyk/Bjørgen rivalry reach an all-time high; not necessarily between the two athletes, but between their respective fans. The constant trolling and flaming of each other has climaxed on message boards; in particular, the FIS comments section where, as I type this, there are 82 comments, 95% of which are Kowalczyk fans calling Bjørgen a doper, while the Bjørgen fans are calling Kowalczyk fans sore losers.

What I’m trying to get here, is that each side thinks their skier is the best in the world. While Kowalczyk won the Overall World Cup this year, Bjørgen cleaned up at the World Champs. Some will argue Kowalczyk is the best overall, since she won the Overall World Cup, while Bjørgen supporters with ignore that fact and focus on the individual races and the World Champs to cite. So who is truly the better athlete?

Currently, the FIS doesn’t have a clear-cut way to propose who is the best athlete in the world. Sure they have the Crystal Globe for the athletes that accumulated the most World Cup points, but does that really tell the whole story?

This blurriness of the lines makes me think that the FIS should implement a new award for the athlete that has the highest average placing in World Cup races throughout the season. Pardon for the hockey reference, but just because a goalie stops the most shots in the league in one season, it doesn’t necessarily make them the best goalie in the league. Currently, the FIS is set up like this.

To differentiate from total shots stopped/World Cup points to shots stopped per game, World Cup points per race there’s different statistical categories.  The NHL has the .GAA – Goals Against Average, how many goals let in during 60 minutes which is equal to a whole game (ie. 2.29 GAA) – and the SV% – Save Percentage, how many shots the goalie stops (ie. 0.919 SV%)- to determine who is the best goalie on an individual basis.

Obviously, there are certain criteria a goalie must meet, such as playing a certain number of games. It would be fair for a goalie to play one game, get a shutout (letting zero goals in), and not playing again for the rest of the season. Same would apply for the new trophy for the FIS. Usually there is about 30-32 races in a season including those clumped into mini-tours, so if the FIS limited the award to skiers that skied at least 40% (12-13 races) a season, that wouldn’t be entirely unreasonable as it allows for pure sprinters too. I apologize if this is getting a little to Statistical Skier for you, but hold on.

So how would this award play out if it was here this season. Well, simply take the athletes who raced at least 12 races this year (not including World Champs) and divide their points by how many races they entered. Here’s how the Overall World Cup looks with the current format:

Overall

	Men	Points	Women	Points
1.	Dario Cologna	1566	Justyna Kowalczyk	2073
2.	Petter Northug	1236	Marit Bjørgen	1578
3.	Daniel Rickardsson	981	Arianna Follis	1310
4.	Lukas Bauer	923	Therese Johaug	1173
5.	Alexander Legkov	796	Charlotte Kalla	1100

With the World Cup points per race, the top five would look like this

Points Per Race

	Men	Points	Race	Average	Women	Points	Race	Average
1.	Dario Cologna	1566	23	68.1	Marit Bjørgen	1578	19	83.0
2.	Petter Northug	1236	20	61.8	Justyna Kowalczyk	2073	29	71.5
3.	Emil Jönsson	746	13	57.4	Therese Johaug	1173	20	58.7
4.	Lukas Bauer	923	18	51.3	Arianna Follis	1310	27	48.5
5.	Daniel Rickardsson	981	23	42.7	Charlotte Kalla	1100	23	47.8

So as you can see Cologna and Bjørgen would take the titles of being the highest quality, or most efficient racers on the circuit. It would settle all the arguments and give the athletes something else to aim for especially since next year is the “lull-year” where there are no Olympics or World Championships.

However, after writing the portion above I realized a couple of speed bumps:

1. Tours races are only 50 points for the win instead of the traditional 100 and the bonus points at the end of the Tours. In addition, the scoring of the points in tour races and non-tour races are different. For example, World Cup points for a fourth place in a non-tour race is 50% of what the winner gets while fourth place in a tour stage is 80% of the winner.
2. Bonus World Cup points given out in the La Clusaz, Rybinsk and Lahti pursuits also skew the true numbers.

To remedy this for the sake of the calculation, instead of average World Cup points, the award would have to be measured as average placing based on a hypothetical athlete who would have won every race they entered. If an athlete won every single race of the season, obviously they would aptly have an average of 1. Calculating with placings instead of World Cup points would take out the need to factor in the difference point value for Tour races and non-Tour races.

In the example of Kowalczyk, she entered 26 races all together this year. As expressed by an average placing throughout the year, Kowalczyk’s total placings were 127 in 26 races this year.

(127/26) = 4.884

In the example of Bjørgen she entered only 17 races all together. Bjørgen’s total placing were 43 in 17 races this year.

(43/17) = 2.529

Thus, on average it shows that Bjørgen was over two places better (2.5th vs. almost 5th average) in every race she entered than Kowalczyk throughout the 2010-2011 season.

So taking all factors into account, the best three skiers in the world would line-up like this:

Points Per Race

	Men	Starts	Total Placing	Average Placing	Women	Starts	Total Placing	Average Placing
1.	Petter Northug	18	120	6.6667	Marit Bjørgen	17	43	2.529
2.	Dario Cologna	20	143	7.15	Justyna Kowalczyk	20	87	4.884
3.	Alexander Legkov	17	197	11.588	Charlotte Kalla	18	136	7.556

So in fact, the King and Queen of the World Championships, are in fact the best skiers this year when you take the World Cup into account. It was close between Cologna and Northug as only 1/2 a placing separated them over the course of the season.

Some will argue that this might not be fair since some athletes cashed in at the low attended Rybinsk races. I say to them, the athletes that didn’t go should go so they can collected some higher places in addition to some potential prize money.

Also, while on the subject of awards for skiers, what about an award for the best new rookie on the circuit. A minimum of five races would be needed to qualify and under a certain age (wouldn’t be fair for all those no-name 30-year-old Russians to get the award every year) and it would go along the same line as the award stated above. We all saw how Hanna Falk burst onto the scene last year, but how many will remember that 5-10 year from now. It was a year that definitely got recognition, but should continue to get recognition in future years and a name on a trophy would remind us when some of the current super-stars came onto the scene.

The U23′s are a great event, but not all the best U23′s are there every year. Look at this year, Harvey on only one race and Johaug who was still eligible, is so good that she doesn’t need to bother with events that are below the World Cup.

As for naming the awards? It seems that the majority of sports in the world have trophies named after great athletes from the past. This is no more apparent than in hockey where every trophy is named after an influential athlete, coach or builder of the sport for their time. Hockey has the “Rocket” Richard Trophy, named after the fiery French-Canadian who played in the 1940′s and was the first player in history to hit 500 goals, to honour the highest goal-scorer of the season and the Vezina Trophy, named after Georges Vezina from the 1920′s dedicated to the best goaltender of the season among others. Baseball has the Cy Young award for the best pitchers of the season while the NBA has the Eddie Gottlieb Trophy for the top rookie.

What if the FIS named these awards the Dæhlie Trophy for the male athlete with the highest average placing and the Skari Trophy for the top female? Currently, the great names of our sport are reserved for the history books and there’s no real recognition of their brilliance except for the odd video on VHS and stories from those old enough to watch them race.

In Canada, we have the Jackrabbits program which was named after the Norwegian-Canadian Herman “Jackrabbit” Smith-Johannsen who introduced not only Canada, but also the USA to the sport of cross-country skiing (This guy was incredible by the way, he lived 111 years). If the program that got us started in the sport was named something bland like “Skiing for kids”, would we really know who the pioneer of the sport was in North America? I doubt it.

With this new trophy in play, it would settle all the qualms that rival fans (read Kowalczyk and Bjørgen) would have with each other and show who is truly show the highest quality skier throughout the year.

Just my 2 cents. Talk to you tomorrow.