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How were the values of the individual skaters calculated???

You can imagine that the referrees had a hell of job there ;-)). Bribes and dinners were
offered by coaches, IOC, NOC and other influentials, but we did not give in to the
many temptations.
To value the skaters we used a new system, with the use of our extensive databases containing the following results:
European Championships
World Championships allround
World Championships sprint.

The reason that we used more data than only last years World cup races, that it
gives in our opinion statistically a better estimate what a skater is capable off.
(if, for instance, they didn't skate at WCups much, but performed well at the Championships)

All these results were gathered, and the best (more than half) results are taken
to estimate what a skater is capable of at his best. The influence of the factor that a skater
joins Wcup races or not is thereby reduced. The player has to judge for him(her) self how much it influences his changes to gather WCup scores.

Generally an average possible WCup points score is calculated, (maximum 60),
and that figure is multipled with 100,000 and rounded to 100,000 to reach
a value in $'s. (maximum 6,000,000 $) Because the number of races at each distance
are different, here's how the values were calculated:

500 m: all 9 WCup races, 2 from the WCh sprint and the 2 heats at WSD (not the overall result).  For the non WCup races the 'group A' scoring is used. Take the best 7 results of the season (half of the races + 1) and average over those 7. If the skater competed in less than 7 races, his amount is averaged over the number of races he skated.
1000 m: Likewise, but the WSD is used as a double heat, because of its importancy.
1500 m: 5 WCups, 1 at ECh allround, 1 at WCh allround, and the WSD as double heat. The best 5 results are used.
3/5 or 5/10K: 5 WCups, 2 long distances at ECh and WCh allround, and the 2 long distances at WSD, then the best 6 results are taken.

In this system the value of a skater is equivalent to an expected WCup point score per race (if you devide the value by 100,000). We'd like to express that by no means this is the perfect system to estimate a skaters value. Every system one uses can allways produce 'wrong' values. In between seasons the form of a skater can change drastically, and the art of the player is to foresee or gamble on that. We thought it was better to use a calculation system using a lot of data instead of a subjective value fixing by the referees (that's why we prefer speedskating instead of figure skating ;-) ).

The only exceptions of our sytem are the injured Friesinger and Feigenwinter, and last year temporary retired Susan Auch.
For F and F, values were calculated from the '97/'98 in a similar way, we expect from them they are totally cured. About Susan, it is a pure subjective guess if she'll perform at the same level a in '98. So therefore we halved the result of the '97/'98 value calculation.
For the Americans who might get upset about the use of ECh results, it is only used as extra data to reach a trustable value. The non-participation of non europeans has had hardly any influence on their value - it is just a race where they didn't participate in. To use the regional qualification championships would only raise their value in a non trustable way, because the main pack didn't compete there.

If players are interested in the full value calculations, these are available on request in Excel worksheets by mail to Kees de Vroege.