Towards a more objective time standard in competitive rowing

Kimmins Kenneth M. and Tsai Ming-Chang ()
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Kimmins Kenneth M.: Institute of Biomedical Engineering, University of Toronto, 164 College Street, Room 407, Toronto M5S 3G9, ON, Canada
Tsai Ming-Chang: Biomechanics & Performance Analysis, Canadian Sport Institute Pacific, Victoria, BC, Canada

Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, 2021, vol. 17, issue 4, 307-311

Abstract: Rowing needs a standardized Gold Medal Standard (GMS) to clearly compare performance across boat classes in competition. Here, we report a method to factor out environmental effects, developing a fairer GMS for individual rowing events. We used results from World Rowing Championships and Olympics Games (2005–2016) to calculate the difference between the fastest winning time of the day and other event winning times on the same day. From this, we calculated a prognostic GMS time for each event via repeated k-fold cross-validation linear regression. Then, we compared these values with the 10-year average winning time and the World Best Time (WBT). We repeated this process to develop prognostic podium standard (PS) times. The prognostic GMS times (RMSE = 9.47; R 2 = 0.875) were universally slower than the WBT (current GMS) by 6.2 s on average but faster than the 10-year average by 12.3 s. The prognostic PS times (RMSE = 10.5; R 2 = 897) were also slower than the WBT but faster than the 10-year average, by 12.2 and 6.3 s respectively. Our time-difference prediction model based on historical data generates non-outlier prognostic times. With the utilization of relative time difference, this approach promises a selection standard independent of environmental conditions, easily applicable across different sports.

Keywords: environmental factors; racing; selection standard; sports performance; testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1515/jqas-2020-0055

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