Athlete Performance Metrics

[Garrick Daft]

Many sports have numbers that they can apply and use to give them a quick reference point for how well an athlete or team may perform, or to rank their performance. I have not seen the same for Strongman. There are rankings that come out, but not any explanation as to how the rankings came about.

So the other day I worked on developing a performance metric, certainly not the end all and be all, and definitely only taking placements into account.
Stuff like quality of competitors at a contest, weights at a contest, and other stuff could be used later on when more time is available to gather that information.

My knowledge of Travis Ortmayer and Derek Poundstone allows me to develop their performance metric. I really do not have any other compiled information to the extent I have on them, and won't have the time to do so until next year maybe.

I will explain the calculation later. But my question is whether you all think it is necessary to even develop these metrics or ratings? And if anyone is willing to help compile information necessary to develop metrics for all professional athletes to store in a database?

Here is Travis and Derek's ( located on the Wikipedia pages- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travis_Ortmayer#Achievements

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derek_Poundstone#Achievements )

Travis Ortmayer
Professional Competitive Record - [1st (12),2nd (5) ,3rd (6) - Out of Total(32)]
Performance Metric - .911 [American - .936 International - .883]

Derek Poundstone
Professional Competitive Record - [1st (5),2nd (5) ,3rd (3) - Out of Total(16)]
Performance Metric - .923 [American - .931 International - .913]

Hopefully next year I will be able to put more time into gathering more data to analyze and so on,.

Rick Freitag mentioned that gambling and betting was needed to help the sport in some ways... developing sport metrics and statistics is needed in order to develop that.

These metrics are by no means final, there are some things that need to be tweaked.

[Jared Enderton]

that looks like a great start. those numbers would be sweet to see!!

[Billy Wolt]

I think with this sport, it's pointless. Between the variety of equipment and events and various shows, getting an accurate measure of performance is unlikely.

Strongman is not a game of statistics

[Garrick Daft]

That's a pessimistic view to take.

You can always come up with numbers that will give you a close to accurate measurement of an athletes performance. Differences in equipment average out, and a good athlete and less athlete in that contest are using the same.
Many variables can be added to come up with a very reliable number, but as in all sports, the uncertainty factor is there.

But, if there are no available statistics and metrics, how do you measure the greatness and performance of an athlete if you are an outsider?

[rob meulenberg]

I think this is a great idea Garrick and I commend you for it.

Here are a couple of my thoughts:

1) I know you are going based on finishes only, but IMO there should eventually be some sort of scaling factor involved with the contest. For instance, it is much harder to place first at IFSA World's than first at a ProAM. I would also say it is probably harder to place 4th at IFSA Worlds (like Derek) did than to win a pro/am. I am not sure how you would normalize this, but it would be nice.

2) Adding in team contests muddies the water as well. I am not sure how to deal with this, just throwing it out there.

All in all, keep it up!

[Billy Wolt]

But, if there are no available statistics and metrics, how do you measure the greatness and performance of an athlete if you are an outsider?


how is any indivial measured? by how many championships they have won. I'm no golfer, or tennis player, but I think they are measured by what majore titles they have won. #1 seed...well, he/she won more.

[Josh Kamins]

how is any indivial measured? by how many championships they have won. I'm no golfer, or tennis player, but I think they are measured by what majore titles they have won. #1 seed...well, he/she won more.

Batting average, Strikeouts, Win/losses for pitchers, number of comebacks in the 4th quarter in a superbowl with a sprained pinky; every sport has tons of stats, and people love them (often too much)

[Billy Wolt]

Batting average, Strikeouts, Win/losses for pitchers, number of comebacks in the 4th quarter in a superbowl with a sprained pinky; every sport has tons of stats, and people love them (often too much)

going by that, how about a metric for each event? might as well break it down to a grainular level.

[Matthew White]

MATTHEW WHITE .000 [LAST] EVERY TIME!!! Bright future for this one! :LOL: