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arXiv · 2306.10560

Shannon Entropy and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index as Team's Performance and Competitive Balance Indicators in Cyclist Multi-Stage Races

Marcel Ausloos
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Abstract

It seems that one cannot find many papers relating entropy to sport competitions. Thus, in this paper, I use (i) the Shannon intrinsic entropy ($S$) as an indicator of "teams sporting value" (or "competition performance") and (ii) the Herfindahl-Hirschman index (HHi) index as a "teams competitive balance" indicator, in the case of (professional) cyclist multi-stage races. The 2022 Tour de France and 2023 Tour of Oman are used for numerical illustrations and discussion. The numerical values are obtained from classical and and new ranking indices which measure the teams "final time", on one hand, and "final place", on the other hand, based on the "best three" riders in each stage, but also the corresponding times and places throughout the race, for these finishing riders. The analysis data demonstrates that the constraint, "only the finishing riders count", makes much sense for obtaining a more objective measure of "team value" and team performance", at the end of a multi-stage race. A graphical analysis allows to distinguish various team levels, with in each a Feller-Pareto distribution, thereby pointing to self-organized processes. In so doing, one hopefully better relates objective scientific measures to sport team competitions, and, besides, even proposes some paths to elaborate on forecasting through standard probability concepts.

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BibTeXRIS

Marcel Ausloos. 2023-06-18. Shannon Entropy and Herfindahl-Hirschman Index as Team's Performance and Competitive Balance Indicators in Cyclist Multi-Stage Races. https://doi.org/10.3390/e25060955

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