Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

Tour de France 2015

I made sort of an early start this year and have the data for the second stage already sorted out. I will start to log the results in the usual way as in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014 now: Stage Results cumulative Time Ranks (click on the images to enlarge) – each line corresponds to a […]

90+4 Minutes of Horror

As the FC Bayern München already won the German Soccer league many weeks ago (and consequently dropped out of the remaining contests), no one was really interested in the Bundesliga any longer – no one? Being boring at one end of the table does not mean that the other end is boring as well. And quite […]

UEFA Champions League Round of 16 draw

Each year after the group stage, there is the much awaited drawing of the eighth-final, which essentially defines a team’s fate. So far the thing is not too complicated, as there are 16 teams out of which we need to generate 8 games – no problem if it would be possible to draw the teams without […]

Big Data: The Truth, Nothing But the Truth

With Big Data and the internet, we all feel like we can know and analyze everything. Certainly Google must feel that way, as they collect not only data, but also what we – the users – find interesting in that vast pile of information. As we should always keep in mind: Google is not charity […]

The Tour is over – long live the Tour!

The Tour 2014 is over and has a winner – Vincenzo Nibali. As some readers asked how they could analyze the data interactively themselves, I post this video by Antony Unwin, who looked at the 2013 data, which was the 100th anniversary of the Tour. If you are inspired now, go download the data and […]

Why NIBALI has only a 50% chance to win the tour

Well, to be honest, I see a far higher chance for him to win the tour, but first let’s look at the data. Having collected 10 years of Tour de France data, it is time to look at structural features of a whole tour. With a sample size of 10 (yes, still far away from […]

Brazil vs. Germany

It is bold to post this after 30 mins in the game, but what can you say … (Just to make sure, this is just meant as an example for effective visualization 😉 )

Tour de France 2014

After the first 4 stages passed, I will start to log the results in the usual way as in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 now: Stage Results cumulative Time Ranks (click on the images to enlarge) – each line corresponds to a rider – smaller numbers are shorter times, i.e. better ranks – all […]

Making Movies

Making Movies is not only the name of an album by Dire Straits, but also the invitation of the ASA Statistical Graphics Section to enter the video competition. You might find the link a bit late (where I can’t dispute, but most creatives prefer to deliver “last minute”, so there is probably still some time […]

Tour de France 2013

Welcome to the Tour de France No. 100! After the first 6 stages passed, I will start to log the results in the usual way as in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 now: Stage Results cumulative Time Ranks (click on the images to enlarge) – each line corresponds to a rider – smaller numbers […]

As Good as it Gets

Developing software in academia usually does not lead to commercial products, and if the intention is just this, the academic qualities often fail to reach common standards. Nonetheless, there is always the hope that commercial products might pick up the ideas generated in academic software projects. Being involved in many software projects on (interactive) statistical […]

Tour de France 2012

— That’s it for this year … After we all recovered from the “shock” that Spanish soccer is still hard to beat (no matter if you are Italian or German …) its time to look into this year’s Tour de France data. After the first 4 stages passed, I will start to log the results […]