Qualifying for the Olympic final
With 60 starting riders and only 18 spots in the final, let's take a look at who's likely to get through to the last day, who's on the bubble, and who we should not expect to qualify.
In our last newsletter we looked at which countries were likely to qualify from the first Grand Prix days to the team final. Today we’ll take a look at which individuals we think will qualify to the individual final. Let’s recap the rules as it’s a bit different from other championships:
The 10 highest scoring teams in the Grand Prix qualifier proceed to the team final on Saturday the 3rd of August, where the riders compete in Grand Prix Special.
The 18 highest scoring individuals in the Grand Prix qualifier proceed to the individual final on Sunday the 4th of August, where the riders compete in Grand Prix Freestyle.
So, what we’re going to try to do is to figure out which 18 out of the 60 starting couples that are likely to progress through to the final. Let’s start by looking at how the predicted scores of all riders are distributed to get a first understanding of how the field looks.
The histogram shows us how many riders have their expected grand prix score in which range. What we can see is that there are a few high performers, from 77% and upwards, and we also have quite a bunch with an expected score below 70%. Let’s try to group the starting field into three different buckets: the safe ones (who we are more or less certain will qualify), the bubble group (the ones that might qualify, but also might not), and the not likely ones (who we are more or less certain will not qualify).
It doesn’t require data nor expertise to make the judgement that the riders with above 77% in expected score are likely to go through, and that the ones with below 70% in expected score are unlikely to qualify. The interesting part is going to be the bubble group - there are a lot of riders here with relatively similar scores but there are not enough final spots for all of them. This is where the excitement and drama will be!
So - how can we go about figuring out who is how likely to qualify? Well, I do what I always do, I consult the data. We feed the historical Grand Prix scores of all 60 starting riders and horses into an algorithm that calculates the scoring ranges for each couple, and then we do what’s called a Monte Carlo simulation (check out this newsletter for more Monte Carlo insight). What this then does is that it takes the likely scoring ranges for each rider (accounting for good days and bad days) and runs the Olympic Grand Prix one hundred thousand (100 000) times.
This gives us 100 000 outcomes for each rider, and we can then easily calculate how often each rider manages to place in the top 18 and thereby qualify to calculate how likely it is for each rider that they will.
The chart shows us in what % of simulations the rider qualified for the final. In the predictions, we see a similar pattern as we expected from the histogram previously. We have a group in the top that are more or less certain to qualify, and a group at the bottom that are very unlikely to qualify. Now that we have probabilities for each rider, let’s put them into the respective groups. We’ll put everyone with above 90% probability to qualify into the “will qualify” group, and everyone with below 10% probability to qualify into the “not likely to qualify group. The pack in the middle is our bubble group that should/can qualify.
Starting from the bottom, we have 31 riders that are unlikely to qualify for the final. We could see one or two from this group qualify if someone has a really good day, but overall we can expect them to not progress to the final.
At the top we have all the Danes, Germans, and Brits, plus Kittel from Sweden, and van Liere from Netherlands. It would be both a huge surprise and disappointment if someone from this group didn’t qualify for the final and it would take something extraordinary for that to happen, or a disqualification of some sort. Just by looking at the names in this group, the probabilities feels quite right as these are riders that I would have assumed would qualify even before I checked any data. With 11 riders in this group we know there are seven spots still up for grabs for qualifying as there are 18 in total.
In the bubble group we have 18 riders that are in contention for the last remaining 7 spots. 11 out of those 18 riders will not make the final. We can see that the range of probability is quite different at the top and the bottom, ranging from 78% (Max-Theurer) down to 10% (Pearce). A few of these riders we should expect to qualify, but with a much lower certainty than the top group. For example Max-Theurer, Nilshagen, and Freese should qualify and we should be a bit surprised if they don’t, but it’s also far from granted that they will. There are a lot of really good riders that will not make the final, but this is also the biggest competition there is so competitiveness is also at it’s very highest.
Based on the simulations, a score of 73% is likely to be required to make the qualifications. Almost all of the riders in the bubble group have scored higher than 73% in their last 5 competitions, so we know everyone in this group can produce a performance that can take them to the final. However, the occasion, the arena, form and everything is what will need to be perfect for them to do so. Who will - that is the interesting question.
I hope this analysis have helped shed some light on that question, and that you (like me) only get more excited for the Olympics to start after reading this. I don’t know about you but I will be keeping a lot of focus on the scores of these riders to see who qualifies for the final. It’s something I am sure all of them are dreaming of doing, so again - the highest of stakes are on the table and we’re here for it!