The new website allows you to look up basic biathlon data on your own (for different disciplines, periods, categories, etc.), so I won’t be posting too many of the regular statistical updates that I have done in the past. If you are interested in a specific statistic or ranking, you can always check out:
These will be updated after each race. I thought it would still be interesting though to take one high-level look at last season’s performances. Below I listed the season-to-season changes in the Overall Performance Score of regular World Cup athletes (at least 14 races in the last two seasons).
Note: The scores are standard scores (or z-scores), indicating how many standard deviations (SD) an athlete is back from the World Cup mean (negative values indicate values better than the mean). The Total Performance Score is calculated by approximating the importance of skiing, hit rate and shooting pace using the method of least squares (for more details, see here and here), and then weighting each z-score value accordingly.
Men
Émilien Jacquelin was the most improved athlete last season, getting better in all major aspects of the sport: 5.5% higher hit rate, 1.8% faster skiing and 1.8s lower range time. Vytautas Strolia improved by the same amount, albeit on a much lower level, earning his first career top 20. They are followed by Johannes Kühn, who almost halved his average ski rank (12.3 to 6.7), and Erlend Bjøntegaard, who managed to increase his hit rate by 7.4%. On the flip side, Lukas Hofer‘s and Benjamin Weger‘s performance scores declined the most; both skiing over 1% slower; Hofer also hit 4.5% less of his targets.
Martin Fourcade ended his record-breaking career with his highest ever hit rate (91.8%), while his ski speed was almost back to his previous best (after a big decline in 2018–19): he had an average Course Time rank of 6.0 last winter – in 5 of his 7 title winning seasons his average ski rank was in the 4.5-5.0 range. The improvement of the French men really stand out (three in the top 10 below). Quentin Fillon Maillet became the second-fastest skier overall (1.5% faster). Johannes Thingnes Bø‘s ski speed declined slightly (on the highest possible level), yet he managed to set the best shooting percentage (92.1%) for a World Cup winner ever.
2019–20 z-Scores compared to 2018–19 | Non-Team events
Women
Tang Jialin improved the most among regular starters, skiing an impressive 2.5% faster. Emma Lunder increased her hit rate from 74.3% to 82.1% and lowered her average Course Time rank by 7.4. Baiba Bendika improved virtually by the same amount, mostly thanks to skiing 1.7% faster. Not far behind was Tiril Eckhoff, who went on an incredible run of 6 wins in 8 races, in large parts thanks to a career-best hit rate (83.1%); her already high ski speed also increased slightly, however, she had been faster in 2015–16.
One of the pre-season favorites, Lisa Vittozzi, had a winter to forget: her overall shooting percentage fell by 7.6%, while her ski speed declined roughly to its 2017–18 level. Susan Dunklee proves that aggregate data isn’t everything, winning world championship silver in one of her worst seasons statistically. Dorothea Wierer claimed her second overall title, shooting minimally worse (-0.9%), but skiing faster than ever (career-best average Course Time rank: 10.0). Kaisa Mäkäräinen ended her long World Cup career (358 individual top-level races, 3rd all time) on a slight uptick; although her hit rate stayed below 80% for a second consecutive year, she managed to improve her ski speed in her final season.
2019–20 z-Scores compared to 2018–19 | Non-Team events