look at the stats

So Greg Minnaar took the win in a thriller from Aaron Gwin but where was it won and lost? Who really nailed the pedal section and who’s been found out for their turbo trainer avoidance over the winter?I’ve been playing about with the splits from Sunday to find some statistical gems for you…

Overall

Apart from the last step, the podium riders were out on their own with 1.3 seconds separating Minnaar from Atherton in 4th place. Steve Smith managed to just hold off Jared Graves for the final step by a mere 0.06 seconds but he was 4.38 seconds back from Minnaar. Less than 2 seconds separated 5th from 14th then another gap of over a second to Steve Peat and the rest of the top 20.

Did the pedal make the difference?

Looking solely at the split times for Sector 2 – the pedally section of the course – the first thing you see is that the top 4 that were so far in front overall were all in the top 5 in the pedal section. The one notable addition to the top 5 being Jared Graves. Not surprising perhaps given his 4X pedigree but impressive nonetheless. Along with Andrew Neethling this top 6 were way out in front on the pedal. Neethling clocked 1.62 seconds slower than Atherton and the next fastest (Marc Beaumont) could only get within 2.9 seconds
The most obvious absence from this top 20 list is Steve Smith who could only manage 22nd on this section of the course. It would be interesting to watch a side-by-side of Graves and Smith as they posted almost identical times but with VERY different splits!

The name that jumps out most for me though is Richard Rude Jr. Not a name I’m familiar with but after a spot of Googling I now know he’s better known as Richie Rude (great name fella…) and he’s a 17 year old riding for the same Yeti Fox Shox Factory team as Jared Graves. He must have had a problem up top as his Split 1 put him only 64th but then he had an absolute stormer of a run after that posting the 11th fastest pedal of the day and 11th fastest bottom split to go 31st. A dark horse to watch out for this year?

So, we can see that there were a few big differences between the overall top 20 and the top 20 for Sector 2. Who were the biggest winners and losers? One way of looking at it would be to compare a combined split for Sectors 1 and 3 with Sector 2 split. Taking each rider’s position in Split 2 and comparing it to a combined Sector 1 and 3 position can show us who gained and lost on the pedal. Here’s the overall top 20:

This shows that the biggest winner on the pedal was clearly Graves, picking up 12 places although Neethling picked up 6 places and Marc Beaumont 8 to recover after his disastrous Sector 1. Predictably, given his flat pedals and dislike of pedalling, Sam Hill lost 6 places compared to his combined Sector 1 and 3 time

 

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed this chart actually shows the top 21 overall because I just wanted to highlight one of this biggest losers on the pedal – Josh Bryceland. His Sector 1 and 3 combined split put him 8th but he had an absolute stinker in Sector 2, posting the 53rd fastest time over 7 seconds down on Atherton’s time and dropping him out of the top 20 overall. I didn’t manage to catch the race live, did he have a crash in that section or was his pedal really that bad?

 

Just about the pedal?

A lot has been written before and after the race about the pedal section, and I’ve just done the same, but digging into the splits for individual sectors highlights the difficulty all of the top riders had in putting together a consistent run across all three sectors on what was meant to be an ‘easy’ course. Only three riders posted a top 10 time in all three sectors – Minnaar (6th, 2nd, 1st), Gwin (2nd, 5th, 4th) and Atherton (10th, 1st, 3rd). I’ve no idea whether this is a common occurrence, having only analysed this one set of results but it certainly shows the importance of consistency. It also shows how a small mistake might cost you the win, but doesn’t necessarily cost you a top 10, or even a podium. Mick Hannah’s splits gave him 1st, 3rd and 28th respectively whilst Steve Smith recorded 5th, 22nd and 2nd. (Note to self: need to work out an interesting way of visualising these inconsistencies for the next round…)

What does all this mean? Who knows… I’ll know more as I dive into the data and get more of an idea of trends across the season and I’m looking forward to doing that and playing around with some new and interesting ways of presenting this data too. I hope you find this interesting, and let me know if you do. I’ll get a similar analysis of the women up as soon as I can!