2017 World Cup Men's Slalom Improvement Tables

The tables present World Cup race results transformed into Z scores so that the results of different races can be compared and the improvement across races of individual skiers can be determined. The table uses the best run of each race. A lower Z score for a race = a better time. If the skier did not start, did not finish, or disqualified for both runs it is indicated. If the Z score for a race is better than the average of all previous races, then the score for that race is highlighted in green. This indicates that the skier improved. The amount of improvement is shown in the parentheses. You can think of the average of the skier's past races as something like a GPA as a ski racer and the current score as the skier's current grade in that race. Ideally, a skier would want to produce improvent over his/her own average past performance each race. That is, the skier should strive to make the calculated Z scores go down. Anything over 0.1 in improvement is worth noting. If the skier is improving several tenths, he/she made significant progress.

If a skier improved on a race, a logical question is what that did in either technique, tactics, or preparation that made the improvement possible. This question is beyond the scope of this article.  If you want to learn more about how this table is created, read more here.

Legend: Blank = did not race; DNS = did not start; DNF = did not finish; DQ = Disqualified; Outlier = race time was too long to include (usually a fall).