In the continued wait for snow in southern Sweden, we entertain ourselves with a bit more Vasaloppet statistics. Previously, we presented the awarded performance medals per year and discussed how these vary with external circumstances. It turned out that the performance medal is a goal that depends on many external factors that are difficult to control. In this post, we look at some alternative objectives for those who are not content with merely having fun, enjoying the race, and finishing.
Perhaps the most unpretentious goal one can have is to aim for a specific placement. To normalize the challenge, we can formulate the question as: How difficult is it to advance one starting group? Furthermore, one might ask how this depends on which group you are in and how it varies from year to year.
One factor that has a strong influence is the number of participants in each starting group. Table 1 shows how many racers are in each starting group based on last year’s Vasaloppet results. The actual number is always greater and varies depending on how many competitors have been seeded into each group. Figure 1 shows the number of starters per group, from groups 0 through 6, over the past six years.
Table 1: Starting groups based on Vasaloppet results.
Figure 1. Number of racers per starting group for groups 0-6 (a) and the number of racers ahead of the last racer in each group (b).
In Figure 1, one can see that in the years 2014–2016, there were significantly more racers seeded in groups 0–6 compared to 2017, when there were fewer racers in each group. Subsequently, the number of seeded racers per group has increased somewhat again. For groups 0 and 1, 2019 had roughly the same number of seeded racers as the years 2014–2016, while for groups 2 to 4 there are still somewhat fewer racers.
From Figure 1(a), it appears that the group with the highest number of seeded racers relative to the size of the starting group is group 0, where on average about 250 racers start, compared to the nominal number of 150 racers according to Table 1. This means that it is relatively difficult to defend one’s position in group 0. It can also be seen that statistically more racers are seeded in group 2 compared to group 1. On average, during the considered years, 740 racers started in group 2 while 440 racers started in group 1, which means that the group has expanded by 48% and 26%, respectively. In the same way, groups 3 and 4 are on average expanded by about 12%, while somewhat more racers are seeded in groups 5 and 6. The conclusion is that a racer who starts at the very back of their group must overtake quite a few racers just to defend their starting group for the following year.
How does it look when one considers how many racers actually manage to advance one starting group—for example, how many of the racers in group 1 manage to advance to group 0, and how many of the racers in group 2 manage to advance to group 1? Is there a group that is easier to advance to? Figure 2 shows the number of racers in groups 0–4 who manage to finish in the top 150, top 500, top 1000, and top 2000.
Figure 2. Number of starters per starting group who manage to finish within the top 150, top 500, top 1000, and top 2000.
Figure 2 shows that the racers who manage to qualify for a starting group almost exclusively come from at most one group behind that group. Advancing two groups is extremely rare among the top four groups. It is also apparent that two years stand out. In 2015, it was significantly easier to advance from group 1 to group 0, from group 2 to group 1, and from group 3 to group 2. The opposite applied the following year, 2016, when it was unusually difficult to advance one group. In particular, this was the case for advancing from group 3 to group 2 and from group 4 to group 3, and to some extent from group 2 to group 1. In 2017—the year with the fewest seeded racers per group—there was nothing particularly remarkable, except that slightly more racers than average managed to advance from group 1 to group 0, while for the other groups, rather slightly fewer racers than average managed to advance one group.
To gain further insight into the above discussion, Figure 3 shows the proportion of racers per starting group who manage to reach the various placements.
Figure 3: Proportion of racers from each starting group who manage to achieve placements within the top 150, 500, 1000, and 2000.
From Figure 3, it is evident that in 2017—the year with the fewest seeded racers—a larger proportion of racers actually managed to defend their starting group, regardless of group. However, it was not a larger proportion than usual that managed to advance. At the same time, the figure shows that in 2016—the year with the most seeded racers—it was unusually difficult to defend a position in groups 2 and 3, and above all, exceptionally difficult to advance one group. The difficulty in advancing in 2016 can be explained by the many seeded racers combined with the fact that, that year, the main tracks slid considerably better than the side tracks, making overtaking more challenging.
In summary, it can be stated that, statistically, it is quite difficult to advance one starting group in the Vasaloppet. For those starting in groups 0–4, on average less than 8% manage this each year. The most challenging is advancing from group 1 to group 0, while it is easier to advance from group 4 to group 3. However, statistically, a slightly higher proportion of racers manage to advance from group 2 to group 1 than from group 3 to group 2, which aligns well with the number of racers seeded in each group. A fairly reasonable goal, on the other hand, is to defend one’s starting group; about 50% of the racers manage this each year, when considering those who start in groups 0 to 4. Finally, it can be concluded that advancing two groups is an extremely tough goal. Usually, one or a couple of group 4 racers manage to advance to group 2, and somewhat fewer manage to advance from group 3 to group 1. Notably, a group 2 racer advancing to group 0 has not occurred during the past six years.
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