Every time there's a fast crop of Junior DH racers we get excited, but sometimes it's easy to get carried away and forget to put things in context. To dig a little deeper into this question, we ran some numbers to see how the juniors have stacked up against the elites since 2017, and if there is some kind of trend to be found in this data. Our main measurement here is how much faster the elites went as a percentage of the junior winning time, and then we tracked that metric over time to see what's going on. Here is the data along with a graph:
Some interesting points:
-the overall trend (red dotted line in the graph above) does point to a gradual reduction in the time gaps between the fastest juniors and the fastest elites.
-The Jackson Goldstone/Jordan Williams era is real. During their two years as juniors they came closer to the elite times than the other juniors did during the other years - they also BEAT the elite times on a combined three occasions! Only Finn Iles managed to do the same in 2017 when he got the better of Gee Atherton in Lourdes (although weather conditions were not in Gee's favor that time).
-Finn posted the same time as Gwin at MSA in 2017, but Gwin did his run in absolutely horrific conditions which will have skewed the data here (Gwin won qualifying with a 4:02 a day prior). Relive that legendary performance here BTW: https://www.redbull.com/sg-en/videos/aaron-gwins-winning-run-at-mont-sa….
-all the dominant juniors in this study have gone on to win in the elite category (Finn, Thibaut, Jackson, Jordan), but it's pretty clear to see from their times that Jackson and Jordan where already knocking on the door as juniors which explains how they were able to pull off wins in their first years in elite.
-Using this data as a crystal ball to look ahead, it seems the average elite winning margin over the juniors has gone up again this year (so far), which means this year's crop of fast juniors may not be headed to the same level of dominance as Jackson and Jordan - if they want to, they have some homework to do!
Footnote: of course this is a small data sample and we realize that the weather plays a large part in how fast a track is running, but it's still interesting to lay it all out like this.
This is pretty cool! Maybe numbers of junior who would have placed top 20 or top 30 would be a good measure of how spread apart the juniors are/were in the past as well. Can you add junior women too?
Another year or so and Asa will blow that graph all to hell....
He's already beating WC elites and can't even race Jr yet.
Yeah way more money is being put into Jrs. Parents, sponsors, are pushing kids further. Then you have entire countries pushing racers. The real question is will they last? Will they burn out much younger?
I am so excited to see what Asa can do next year.
Having seen a lot of peculiar data visualizations in mtb media recently, it's refreshing to see someone present a clear question, use a data set that can shed some light on it, and pick one visualization that reasonably well supports the discussion they're trying to have
Nico, ACC, Cedric, Pascal, ALL of the Aussies, Greg.....the 90's had F*CK tons of jrs that went on to be senior assassins. Another cool chart would be to see of the Jrs that crush it as Jrs, and where they go as seniors, because, time has shown very few go on to huge elite success. Are they getting "faster" perhaps, is the amount of them more than ever? perhaps.
As for Asa, I sure wish people would just let him be himself and do what he's gonna do. So many people with the rap of "just you wait, he's gonna blow everyone to pieces" is yet to be seen, let the kid be a kid, must suck to already have internet pressure.
I knew a young kid in Aptos who was a BMX ripper, Moto prodigy and was hitting lines on a mountain bike that plenty of pros took a pass on. If he hadn't been pressured by his dad so much, you would know his name right now. No question. But the kid just wanted to be a kid and so you don't know his name. It was such a tremendous waste of a great talent.
Has anyone won a race in their first senior year before Jackson and Jordan did it this year?
You always have to be careful as sometimes there is more to the story than the results sheet: Loris Vergier was pretty much as fast if not faster than Loic when he got into Juniors, then he massively crashed and injured himself at the start of his first junior season (and maybe again the second year), and it took him a while to get back to his current consistent podium performance.
There are two monsters prepping for Juniors in France: the Alran brothers, looking forward to have another France vs USA competition, as god intended, enough of this Canada vs UK blasphemy
Not just asa, hes got some very close competition from nz, tyler waite and oli clark. Already beating elite times at national rounds. Tyler actually bet asa at crankworx Rotorua this year in the taniwha dh.
Count nz in the mix, we have two very fast kids who will be first year juinor next year. Already beating elite times at national rounds consistently
I agree. It would be cool to see how much success the top 3 Juniors in the overall from the past few seasons have had in their first few seasons of elites. I'm sure it's a mixed bag, but looking at the winners from the past six seasons in Junior men, Thibault, Finn, Jackson, Jordan, and Matt Walker have all gone on to have success in Elites.
Eh, I don't know. If you have it, you have it. These days it seems you are going to get attention really early if you show the potential to be a real prodigy. While there is a real conversation to be had about all the parental pressure placed on kids with respect to any merit based activity, I don't think "the internet" is a problem for Asa. If anything, he seems to thrive on all the kudos, "you are crushing it" and "can't wait for next year" type of comments that get lobbed his way (at least from what I've seen).
Don't forget, seems like every sport has their eyes open for the next big thing. In my lifetime, I remember hearing about Tiger, LeBron, Travis Rice, Shiffrin etc all around the age of 16; more to the point Goldstone literally was on the internet when he was 5 with comments like "next WC champ right here".
Its not good or bad, it just is part of the times. Regardless, I can't wait to see what the kid does. He's a ninja on a bike and a cool dude to boot.
I think yes and no. If you look at the Pro fields in a lot of the series we don't have that many compared to the 14/17 class. Example at a Colorado DH at Keystone just last week we only had 10 Pro Men. I think the JRs are fast for sure but i think we have lost a lot of the pro riders over the last 10/15 year due to lack of support from the sponsorship side unless you are the very elite. It an expensive sport and always has been without a lot of return.
Nz is cooking up a bunch of absolute pinners who will have an impact when they go to the world cups. Got a few who will be first year juinor next year. Then some more a year or two after. Camden rutherford is a big one. 14 years old. Already winning races consistently in nz and internationally. Bernard kerr/eddie masters actually got him signed onto pivot at the start of the year
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