The ratio of uphill pace to downhill pace in a foot race up and down a single mountain is used as a measure of a competitor’s descending skills – those qualities which are needed for fast descent but not for ascent. For the set of competitors in each of 44 races on seven courses of differing...

This paper uses a statistical analysis of match sprint outcomes to guide tactical decisions in this highly tactical contest and to provide competitors and coaches with a potential, marginal gain. Logistic regression models are developed to predict the probability of the leading rider winning at...

Sports ranking systems are often viewed as inadequate for judging the quality of the teams or players involved. Meanwhile, statistical models have been shown to produce more accurate ratings for those competitors, based on their ability to forecast future results. However, whilst predictive...

This paper examines the performance of goalkeepers in the English Premier League. A commonly used metric to assess goalkeeper ability is the saves-to-shots ratio. It is shown that goalkeepers playing in weak teams have to defend against on-target shots that have a relatively high probability of...

Sports leagues consist of conferences subdivided into divisions. Teams play a number of games within their divisions and fewer games against teams in different divisions and conferences. Usually, a league structure remains stable from one season to the next. However, structures change when...

Subjective ratings of the best drivers in the history of Formula One are common, but objective analyses are hampered by the difficulties involved in comparing drivers who raced for different teams and in different eras. Here, we present a new method for comparing performances within and between...

We analyze a sports league that wishes to augment its traditional double round-robin tournament into a longer season. The method for doing so, chosen by the top Swedish handball league Elitserien, is to form two divisions that hold an additional single round-robin tournament to start the season....

Standings in sports are obtained by applying a system of rules to evaluate the performance of the participants in a competition. We consider standings that result from assigning an ordinal rank to each competitor according to their performance. We develop an integer programming model for...

Soccer analytics often follow one of two approaches: 1) regression models on number of shots taken or goals scored to predict match winners, or 2) spatial and/or temporal analysis of plays for evaluation of strategy. We propose a new model to evaluate skill importance in soccer. Play by play...

Competitive balance is a key issue for any professional sport league substantiated by its effect on demand for league games or other associated products. This work focuses on the measurement of between-seasons competitive balance, the longest time-wise dimension, which captures the relative...