When is the smackdown on Chris Horner?

[ScienceIsCool]

Mr Swanson's statistical analysis is biased IMO. The setup is cherry-picked to make Horner look bad. Yes, he's an extreme outlier when it comes to "age at first vuelta win". He's a little less of an outlier when it comes to "age at vuelta win". The latter actually seems more interesting to me if you're discussing what's humanly possible.

The other source of bias is how few riders of any type are still active at Horner's age. We don't really know how a 41 year old performs because we only have two current examples, Jens Voigt and Chris Horner. On average, protour 41 year olds are better than 27 year olds.

The analysis that would be most interesting imo is: what percent of the time does a rider who enters the Vuelta win it, bucketed by age.

Knock yourself out. Run the numbers and let us know. BTW, adding a whole year to the *average* winner's age does approximately nothing to this discussion. Add two years, and you're having the same discussion.

John Swanson

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

The other source of bias is how few riders of any type are still active at Horner's age. We don't really know how a 41 year old performs because we only have two current examples, Jens Voigt and Chris Horner. On average, protour 41 year olds are better than 27 year olds.

It´s not him, but you are biased. You fell in the trap of "survivorship bias". (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)
OTOH, his chosen method is correct....
You can´t come up with the conclusion that since there is only 2 riders still active at 40+ that Horner should only be compared to this other active old rider, leading to nonsense like "On average, protour 41 year olds are better than 27 year olds".
In reality it is that 99+% of 40+ year olds are not good enough to still ride in the peloton (doped or not). Thus all retired riders should be counted too in any serious statistical method.

Finally, one reason for the extreme Horner outlier (which John Swanson didn´t take into considerartion) should be also judged:
It might be true that Horner got a golden window of opportunity;
Other riders were not doped as much as in the darker days, while Horner went full scale over the top all-in-doping. Actually this can be the only acceptable, logical and serious conclusion for this "black swan" (the term outlier is too soft to describe the grotesque outcome of last years Vuelta).

The analysis that would be most interesting imo is: what percent of the time does a rider who enters the Vuelta win it, bucketed by age.

Again, such a method would lead to wrong results and conclusions because of the survivorship bias.
IOW, if such a study would be done, retired riders who don´t enter the Vuelta must be included. That´s the only way to get correct results.

 

[proffate]

[gibberish]leading to nonsense like "On average, protour 41 year olds are better than 27 year olds".[gibberish]

This statement is true, not nonsense. But it is intended to point out how a true statement can still lead to a nonsense conclusion, i.e. that 41 year olds are generally better than 27 year olds.

 

[The Hitch]

The mind boggles when one thinks about how much he could have won had he figured out [whatever it is he has going on now] fifteen years ago.

Mind blown.

 

[Hugh Januss]

All this "science" stuff is awesome, I think you have proven what we knew already. Horner doped to beat other dopers at the Vuelta. I am so surprised.

 

[ChewbaccaD]

All this "science" stuff is awesome, I think you have proven what we knew already. Horner doped to beat other dopers at the Vuelta. I am so surprised.

America, FU*K YEA!

 

[RobbieCanuck]

...To be that far of an outlier usually suggests a strong bias or influence.The data doesn't tell you what that influence is...

What do we know that can affect performance in a way that can explain this way?

- Better training? Nope.
- Better equipment? Nope.
- Motivation? Nope.
- Diet (ex: rice cakes)? Nope.
- Doping? Yup.

Barring new data, the most likely explanation is that Horner doped and doped hard to win his Vuelta. It's science. <shrug>

John Swanson

I am working on my degree in psychology so thanks for the stats class.

Although I stand to be corrected, my memory is that Horner was coming off an extended period of recovery from an injury, so he was really well rested going into the Vuelta and his body was not suffering from the usual strain of the peloton in late August - early September, 2013. A confound perhaps.

In my view, this would have a huge impact on performance and not accounted for in your analysis, especially when you say, the data doesn't tell us what that influence is...

 

[argyllflyer]

All this "science" stuff is awesome, I think you have proven what we knew already. Horner doped to beat other dopers at the Vuelta. I am so surprised.

I see it more that a doped Horner was able to compete with and beat clean(er) and more fatigued riders 10 years younger (and the rest) than himself. Would the same performance in 2006/7 have got him victory?

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

This statement is true, not nonsense. But it is intended to point out how a true statement can still lead to a nonsense conclusion, i.e. that 41 year olds are generally better than 27 year olds.

Instead of admitting to the serious points made by John & me, you take my post out of context and then split hairs where I failed w/my grammar. Well done. That´s how "arguments" are made when there are none by you.
Old tactic by former LA fanboys, now used to defend Horner.

I see it more that a doped Horner was able to compete with and beat clean(er) and more fatigued riders 10 years younger (and the rest) than himself. Would the same performance in 2006/7 have got him victory?

1st of all; good post with great conclusions...

That is in the same (true) context as with my conclusion. Actually it´s the only conclusion that can be made.
There is no other way to explain such an extreme outlier than that Horner doped more, respectively more effective, than his competitors at the Vuelta 2013.
If all riders were doping rougly at the same level in that tour (like it was in the 90s and early to mid 2000s), there is simply no chance that Horner could have beat the field of younger athletes. Basically that is what John Swansons greatly researched numbers tell us.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

... he was really well rested going into the Vuelta and his body was not suffering from the usual strain of the peloton in late August - early September, 2013. A confound perhaps.

In my view, this would have a huge impact on performance and not accounted for in your analysis, especially when you say, the data doesn't tell us what that influence is...

Goes in the same direction of "trained harder, higher cadence, bigger heart, etc." excuses....
Actually it´s the other way around. Horner (ifn´t aided by more , and/or more effective doping) would have been unable to hold wheels, let alone ride away from his competitors, given his still injured knee and lack of training hours...

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

The analysis that would be most interesting imo is: what percent of the time does a rider who enters the Vuelta win it, bucketed by age.

Again, such a method would lead to wrong results and conclusions because of the survivorship bias.
IOW, if such a study would be done, retired riders who don´t enter the Vuelta must be included. That´s the only way to get correct results.

To finalize the conclusion that such method (as you described) would lead to wrong assumptions;
If you include riders in the "age buckets" that won a Vuelta (or GT) before at an younger age, you would bias the numbers by favouring older riders who won their first tour at an older age.
Reason:
Riders who won a first GT at lets say age 25 and then win again at age 34, have shown their talent early. That means the more talented riders are more able to also win also at older ages.
Conclusion:
The only way* to examine the Horner outlier is to go by Swansons method to look at first time winners only.

* There might by more ways to look at it, but the grounding method must be the same, to look at 1st time winners only, to exclude survivorship bias and "talent early" bias.
The results then may would differ a lit from Swansons original numbers, but would still show how extreme unlikely the Horner win was.

 

[del1962]

There are plenty of reasons (what Di Canio said, Rider 15, what was chasing down Hincapie about) to question Horner without the misuse of statistics.

 

[The Hitch]

what was chasing down Hincapie about) to question Horner without the misuse of statistics.

What was bullying Landis about?

It's the exact same crime ffs- going after someone who told on lance.

How can you attack Horner for it but then selectively let your favourite rider off? That makes 0 sense to anyone.

How can you not see what a ridiculous position that is

If you want to say it's reasonable to attack people for telling on lance, fine, but don't then go attacking Horner for it.

Make up your mind. Either it's ok or it's not. It cannot be ok for riders you like and not ok for riders you don't.

 

[ebandit]

puZZled

I have fun with data. It's what I do. More data.
This means that Horner, at ~42 years old is nearly 6 sigma away from the average. This also means that statistically, it will take another 2-3 million years before someone that age again wins his first Vuelta. Let that sink in a minute...

john i'm puzzled..............if after 100 years of the vuelta we have 1 winner
aged 42 then statistically we might expect another similarly aged winner in the forthcoming 100 years

or am i oversimplifying things?............big numbers scare me

Mark L

 

[del1962]

What was bullying Landis about?

It's the exact same crime ffs- going after someone who told on lance.

How can you attack Horner for it but then selectively let your favourite rider off? That makes 0 sense to anyone.

How can you not see what a ridiculous position that is

If you want to say it's reasonable to attack people for telling on lance, fine, but don't then go attacking Horner for it.

Make up your mind. Either it's ok or it's not. It cannot be ok for riders you like and not ok for riders you don't.

sorry but I have very little time for your specious arguments

 

[The Hitch]

There is no argument from me. I am merely observing the fact that you have a problem with Horner attacking those who testified against lance and 0 problem with wiggins doing it.

I am trying to help you out by pointing out to you this massive contradiction, that is visible to everyone else and encouraging you to form a consistent opinion.

Is it wrong to go after the people who's testimonies took down lance. Yes or no?

Pick an answer and then follow it, either by demonstrating equal outrage at Wiggins doing it, or by excusing Horner for doing it.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Ah knew there would be reference to Wiggins somewhere, no matter what the subject

 

[happychappy]

Although I stand to be corrected, my memory is that Horner was coming off an extended period of recovery from an injury, so he was really well rested going into the Vuelta

Not training/racing is the new training/racing. Imagine how fast he'd be if he took 12 months off from racing. WoW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Master50]

I have fun with data. It's what I do. More data. So with that in mind, I decided to figure out what age everyone was when they won their first Vuelta. It was a bit tedious, but the results are kind of amazing, so I thought I'd share them.

From the very first Vuelta to 2012, the average age of a first time winner is just under 27.5 years old. The youngest is 22, and the oldest is 33. The results are normally distributed and the standard deviation is 2.6 years.

This means that Horner, at ~42 years old is nearly 6 sigma away from the average. This also means that statistically, it will take another 2-3 million years before someone that age again wins his first Vuelta. Let that sink in a minute...

And here's the raw data for anyone wanting to graph it (I highly recommend it!). The list is the winner's age, in order from first Vuelta until 2012.

22
29
29
27
29
23
27
27
31
31
26
27
23
22
25
29
28
27
29
27
26
29
25
32
27
28
31
30
25
24
33
24
30
25
24
25
30
26
32
28
25
31
27
29
28
26
26
29
27
27
26
29
26
30

John Swanson

Does this data include North American riders who never took the Euro route to his career? That entire list is made of riders that got the opportunity to race the Vuelta young enough.
Where is you data of the oddest riders? Chris wins that list too.

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Ah knew there would be reference to Wiggins somewhere, no matter what the subject

Or Froome for that matter.... It´s just a question of time. Even if he don´t fit at all into this "old age topic".

 

[Dear Wiggo]

So good to see people quoting entire posts in case we miss any context availed of 60 essentially blank lines with a number at the start of each one.

Good job, keep it up! Thumbs up!!

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

not training/racing is the new training/racing. Imagine how fast he'd be if he took 12 months off from racing. Wow!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

rofl... :d

 

[FoxxyBrown1111]

Does this data include North American riders who never took the Euro route to his career? That entire list is made of riders that got the opportunity to race the Vuelta young enough.
Where is you data of the oddest riders? Chris wins that list too.

CH doesn´t qualify for your method since he took the europe chance at young age.... only that he failed big time.

 

[The Hitch]

Ah knew there would be reference to Wiggins somewhere, no matter what the subject

Yes threads often move on to take on other subjects. As happened in this case when del decided he was going to complain about Horner chasing down hincapie. It is perfectly natural that when someone so blatantly applies opposing standards to 2 riders they get called out on it. Happens all the tine i have no idea what problem you have with that.

Are we supposed to keep quiet when we see such hypocrisy because jimmy doesn't like Wiggins coming up? Blame del for using such outrageous double standards. Grow the balls to go after the more extreme and nutty sky defenders when they cause trouble, like me and people like pcmg, hrotha do with say the hog and others. Or suck it up, don't go blaming us when your side behave that way

 

[The Hitch]

Or Froome for that matter.... It´s just a question of time. Even if he don´t fit at all into this "old age topic".

Sorry, were you not bringing Horner up in the skiing thread just last week?