ABSTRACT

Research Question: The paper analyzes mass start competitions in professional biathlon, where 30 biathletes start simultaneously. This structure allows us to test the existence of discouragement effect, according to which biathletes reduce their efforts when lagging far behind the leaders.

Research Methods: We use data on all 180 mass start competitions, for both genders, in World Cups, World Championships, and Olympic Games between the 2001/02 and 2019/20 seasons, and compare the gap times between the two consecutive ranks. For the same period, we execute the same analyses for all sprint and individual competitions that use interval starts.

Results and Findings: We find that, in mass starts, the 95% confidence intervals of the gap times between the two consecutive ranks overlap in the range of rankings between 3 and 25 among men and between 5 and 24 among women, with mean gaps of 6.6 and 7.7 seconds among men and women, respectively. However, that gap increases sharply for the four bottom ranks (that is, ranks 27–30), which have mean gaps of 29.8 and 31.2 sec among men and women, respectively. However, in sprint and individual races, the lag time between two consecutive ranks does not exceed 4 (sprint) and 10 (individual) seconds in the range of rankings between 10 and 60.

Implications: The results suggest that bottom-ranked biathletes in mass starts strategically reduce their efforts when there is nothing at stake. Such a strategy increases the duration of TV broadcasts and does not help maximize suspense, which is one of the main drivers of TV demands in professional sports. We offer an alternative format, according to which a certain number of the bottom-ranked biathletes will be eliminated after each bout of shooting. Such a format should dramatically increase the suspense-to-time ratio.

摘要

研究问题：本文分析了专业冬季两项的大众起跑比赛，其中有30名运动员同时起跑。这种结构使我们能够测试泄气效应的存在，据此，运动员在远远落后于领导者时会减少努力。

研究方法：我们使用2001/02至2019/20赛季之间在世界杯，世锦赛和奥运会上进行的所有180次男女大赛的数据，并比较两个连续排名之间的差距时间。在同一时期，我们对所有使用间隔开始的冲刺和个人比赛执行相同的分析。

结果与发现：我们发现，在大规模开始时，两个连续等级之间的间隔时间的95％置信区间重叠在男性的3至25和女性的5至24的排名范围内，平均差距为男女分别为6.6秒和7.7秒。但是，对于四个最低等级（即等级27-30），该差距急剧增加，男女之间的平均差距分别为29.8和31.2秒。但是，在短跑和个人竞赛中，两个连续等级之间的滞后时间在10到60之间的等级范围内不会超过4（短跑）和10（个人）秒。

启示：结果表明，排名最底的运动员在没有任何危险的情况下从战略上减少了他们的努力。这样的策略增加了电视广播的持续时间，并且无助于使悬念最大化，这是职业体育对电视需求的主要驱动力之一。我们提供了另一种格式，根据该格式，每次射击后都会淘汰一定数量的排在最后的运动员。这种格式应大大增加暂停时间。