![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
redfiona99When I posted about the 2023 Tour de France withdrawals (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2023/11/18/withdrawals-in-week-3-of-the-2023-tour-de-france-an-overall-round-up-and-confirmation-that-the-olympics-didnt-cause-more-withdrawals/), ioplokon wondered whether the fact that the teams on the women's tour had fewer resources for recuperation etc might affect which racers completed the Tour de France.
Using the stats from Procycling Stats (https://www.procyclingstats.com/), I wanted to see if there was anything in that theory.
Attempt one - if it is a "recovery problem", I'd expect the riders who raced the week before to be less likely to finish the Tour de France Feminine (TDFF).
Putting those numbers in a 2 x 2 Chi-Squared table suggested that there was no statistically significant difference as to whether racers finished or did not finish the Tour de France Feminine depending on whether or not they raced the week before.
Okay, so I thought, maybe those were only smaller races. Maybe a bigger race would take it out of the racers more. So, was there any difference in whether or not a racer finished the Tour de France Feminine based on whether they'd raced the Giro d'Italia Donne?
Again, using a 2 x 2 Chi-Squared table suggested that there was no statistically significant difference.
I'm going to say, the big thing that surprised me was how small the crossover was between people who raced in the Giro Donne and the TDFF. I would have expected there to have been more.
Final theory was, hey, maybe cumulative damage would affect this. So, of the 43 riders who did both races, did finishing the Giro Donne have any effect?
Sadly for L's hopes that I will make strong conclusions to my posts, nope, there was no statistical significance there either.
So what are we seeing - if there is any factor that affects likelihood of finishing the Tour de France Feminine, it is not having raced the week before, it's not having competed in the grand tour before it, and it is not completing the grand tour before it.
Further investigations would be whether this extends to the men's Tour de France too, given the greater overlap in competitors between the grand tours.
ioplokon wondered whether the fact that the teams on the women's tour had fewer resources for recuperation etc might affect which racers completed the Tour de France.Using the stats from Procycling Stats (https://www.procyclingstats.com/), I wanted to see if there was anything in that theory.
Attempt one - if it is a "recovery problem", I'd expect the riders who raced the week before to be less likely to finish the Tour de France Feminine (TDFF).
| Raced within 1 week of the TDFF | Did not race within one week of the TDFF | |
| Completed the TDFF | 32 | 91 |
| Did not complete the TDFF | 7 | 24 |
Putting those numbers in a 2 x 2 Chi-Squared table suggested that there was no statistically significant difference as to whether racers finished or did not finish the Tour de France Feminine depending on whether or not they raced the week before.
Okay, so I thought, maybe those were only smaller races. Maybe a bigger race would take it out of the racers more. So, was there any difference in whether or not a racer finished the Tour de France Feminine based on whether they'd raced the Giro d'Italia Donne?
| Raced the Giro | Did not race the Giro | |
| Completed the TDFF | 34 | 89 |
| Did not complete the TDFF | 9 | 22 |
Again, using a 2 x 2 Chi-Squared table suggested that there was no statistically significant difference.
I'm going to say, the big thing that surprised me was how small the crossover was between people who raced in the Giro Donne and the TDFF. I would have expected there to have been more.
Final theory was, hey, maybe cumulative damage would affect this. So, of the 43 riders who did both races, did finishing the Giro Donne have any effect?
| Finished the Giro | Did not finish the Giro | |
| Completed the TDFF | 31 | 3 |
| Did not complete the TDFF | 7 | 2 |
Sadly for L's hopes that I will make strong conclusions to my posts, nope, there was no statistical significance there either.
So what are we seeing - if there is any factor that affects likelihood of finishing the Tour de France Feminine, it is not having raced the week before, it's not having competed in the grand tour before it, and it is not completing the grand tour before it.
Further investigations would be whether this extends to the men's Tour de France too, given the greater overlap in competitors between the grand tours.
