Who can skate for the Netherlands for medals at the Winter Games in Milan? This is not just about performance on the ice. A seemingly silly document published last Friday by the KNSB skating association also plays a crucial role.
A list of hundreds and thousands, randomly arranged, without names – that is what the layman sees. But for the skaters who step onto the ice at Thialf on Boxing Day for the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (OKT), this ‘selection order’ could determine their Olympic dreams.
The selection order, introduced in the run-up to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver, has become established in Dutch long track speed skating over the past fifteen years. The complicated puzzle that comes with it, the commotion that arises when skaters are subsequently designated for an Olympic starting ticket at the expense of others: it has become part of the Olympic anticipation.
Researched using data from the past four Winter Games NRC the predictive value of the selection order and the ‘performance matrix’ that underlies it. And we asked those involved, including former skaters and coaches: is this the best and fairest selection procedure for the Winter Olympics, which start in early February?
‘The Jans’
Optimizing decisions is the job of Gerard Sierksma, emeritus professor of Operations Research in Groningen. Based on statistics and mathematics, he designs models that can help make a decision as efficiently as possible, as quickly as possible or as fun as possible. Sierksma is a skater himself and had been following the Olympic qualifying tournaments for some time, when he realized in 2009: this is also a decision-making process. He sent an email to the KNSB and received a response “almost immediately,” he says. It was: let’s talk.
Until then, in Dutch skating, qualification for the Winter Games was a combination of an OKT and what was called ‘the cross system’ in the corridors. Skaters could give themselves a protected position by performing well in the preseason: they would then receive a cross behind their name. “If a calamity should occur at the OKT,” says former skating champion Mark Tuitert, “such as a fall or illness, you were entitled to a skate-off.”
That selection procedure was not watertight, as Tuitert himself experienced at the OKT for the 2006 Winter Games. As vice world champion in the 1,500 meters, he had a cross behind his name, but during his ride he made a mistake. “Well, is that a calamity? I should have dropped then. Now I lost a lot of time, but I did not claim a skate-off.” Tuitert was not allowed to go to the Olympic Games in Turin.
At the time, the selection for the Games was increasingly perceived as chaotic and opaque. The final word went to the top sports committee of the KNSB – also known in the skating world as ‘the Jannen’, because all three members were called Jan. “Of course they had an impossible assignment,” says experienced skating coach Jac Orie. Tuitert: “Nobody trusted the committee.”
Another problem: fewer and fewer individual starting tickets became available per country at the Winter Games. In 2010 there were twenty (ten men, ten women), now there are eighteen. For the world’s dominant skating nation, the Netherlands, this meant: more contenders than starting places.
Also read
The Games in Milan are getting closer, but the Dutch men are skating in the margins for the time being
Sierksma developed a model that calculated the Dutch skaters’ chances of winning at the Games. It was based on computer simulations of competitions in which the international performances (World Cup competitions, World Cup distances) of the Dutch in the last two years were leading. With this performance matrix – or simply ‘the matrix’ – Sierksma was able to present a selection with maximum medal chances to the KNSB. Selection matches were not necessary. “But I did not sufficiently realize that the skating association had another problem,” he says. “Money also had to be made, and an OKT with full stands was ideal for that.”
This is how the procedure that is used to this day was born. The performance matrix calculates the ideal selection. A KNSB committee makes a selection order – with the greatest chances of Olympic gold at the top. And that ‘sevo’ is then filled in with the results of the OKT.
‘Breed the matrix’
It took some getting used to for the skaters in 2009. NRC described how Mark Tuitert had to ask his wife in the stands at the OKT whether he had received his Olympic ticket or not, after his fourth place in the 1,000 meters. There was anger among the male sprinters about the low ranking of the starting tickets for the 500 meters in the selection order. “Breed the matrix”, signed de Volkskrant at the time from Tuitert’s mouth.
The former skater has to laugh about it now. “I actually liked it straight away, the matrix and the selection order provided clarity. But the OKT is a tournament where you can’t win anything, a kind of trap that you have to get through, no matter how. So breed the matrix, you just had to skate as hard as possible.”
That is the major benefit of this system, say both Sierksma and Remy de Wit, the current technical director of the KNSB: peace and clarity in the run-up to the Games. Another advantage, says De Wit, is that the OKT has become even more of a peak moment due to the matrix and the selection order than before, when skaters with a cross still had an escape route.
The result is that skaters at the OKT can test run for the pressure of the Games: it all has to happen in that one ride. “I dispute the idea that we are organizing the OKT for the money,” says De Wit. “It costs us more money than it earns us. We do this because we think it is good from a sporting point of view.”
Kramer’s spot
However, there are also disadvantages to the Dutch selection procedure, say those involved. For example, the system creates an order based on personal performances of skaters from the recent past, but the places on that list can then be conquered by other skaters at the qualifying tournament. Skating coach Orie calls this “a weakness of the model”. Professor Sierksma: “I can present the KNSB with a selection with the greatest chances of winning based on the performance matrix. But the association makes it difficult for itself by adding a tough selection competition with the OKT.”
Every four years there are examples of skaters who come high in the selection order but finish low at the Games – and vice versa. The unknown Bob de Vries won the 5,000 meters at the OKT for the 2018 Winter Games, a distance that gave a high medal chance due to the years of international dominance of Sven Kramer. At the Games in Pyeongchang, De Vries then finished disappointingly thirteenth, while Kramer captured his third gold. “I went there as the main medal candidate,” De Vries says now. “I actually rode in Kramer’s spot. Still, it didn’t feel like I had stolen his spot. Then they should have ridden me off at the OKT.”
Margot Boer sees that she has won the bronze medal in the 1,000 meters at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
Photo ROBIN UTRECHT/ANP
It was exactly the opposite for sprinter Margot Boer four years earlier. At the OKT for the Games in Sochi (Russia) she finished fourth in the 1,000 meters, putting her in a low place in the selection order (sixteenth). But because skaters above her qualified for several distances, she was still allowed to go to Sochi – and won a bronze medal. “According to the matrix, that could not have happened,” says Boer. “It happened anyway.”
Accurate forecaster
Despite these outliers, the matrix appears to be a fairly accurate predictor of Olympic success – at least if you look at the top spots in the selection order. This is evident from NRC’s data research into the past four Winter Games. It turns out that those who managed to get one of the first three places in the selection order also found themselves on the Olympic podium in three quarters of the cases. The success rate gradually decreases as the positions become lower.
Sports statistician Sierksma does not claim that his performance matrix has contributed to Dutch skating success. “The causality cannot be checked, because you have no comparison material – the same Games with the same skaters without selection order. So I would estimate its predictive value at zero.” Technical director De Wit of the KNSB thinks differently. “I dare to say 100 percent that the Netherlands has achieved more success due to the matrix and the selection order, because since then we have been giving priority to the distances for which we have the best chance.”
Scroll to go through the graphs step by step. The text continues below the graphic.
Making way
Priority for the most promising distances – that is also the source of a discussion that flares up every four years. Because why wouldn’t you simply identify the most promising skaters in advance? Three-time Olympic champion Kjeld Nuis recently advocated such a protected place during the World Cup competitions in Hamar. “Femke Kok, just send to Milan without qualification. Jenning de Boo, just send. Joy Beune, just send. Me, just send,” he said against it A.D.
Such an option does indeed exist, but only after the OKT. In the event of emergencies – or for the mass start and team pursuit – the KNSB has the option to appoint skaters (maximum three women and three men). “Basically this happens as little as possible,” says Remy de Wit. “Whoever is the best at the OKT has the best chance of Olympic success, that’s what we believe.”
Jutta Leerdam and Femke Kok during the 500 meters on the last day of the third Speed Skating World Cup in the Thialf stadium.
Photo Vincent Jannink/ANP
Yet there seems to be no doubt: top players such as Kok, Beune or De Boo will be allowed to go to the Games in the event of a disaster at the OKT – fall, illness, injury. “So on the one hand you have a model for which you judge skaters very harshly,” says skating coach Orie, “and on the other hand, cases for which you say: the model does not apply to that. That is special.”
Since the matrix was introduced, every four years there have been skaters who have had to make way because of a designated spot. Four years ago it happened to Dai Dai N’Tab and Tijmen Snel: both placed according to the selection order for the Beijing Games, both passed over in favor of riders for the team pursuit. “Something like that will happen again this time,” says Orie. “People are just going to miss out, like with every OKT.”
Remy de Wit of the KNSB understands the discussion. But, he says: “The selection rules have been drawn up in consultation with the coaches and skaters. It is better for them to focus their energy on being as good as possible at the OKT.”
The journalistic principles of NRC