On Thursday, January 16, 2020 at 9:06:57 PM UTC-6, Charlie Quebec wrote:
Lucky that the other competitor got a zero on the first day. To come back from a zero to 10th, and close enough a first day score of less than 850 would have seen the French girl win.


Both French pilots flew exceptionally well except for the one bad outcome on Day 1. However, I would quibble with you that this represented a potentially decisively lucky break for Sarah.

If you look more closely at the scores, Sarah smoked the entire field on Day 1. The French pilots flew as a tight team, as is common. They were typically within 40-50 points of each other each day and the average points spread between them outside Day 1 was less than six points - the expected result of such a tight team strategy. On Day 1 the other French Pilot scored 752 points, so if they had flown together and finished together the French pilot who got a zero on Day 1 would still have come up 112 points short in the end. On only one day did the differential between the two French pilots exceed 112 points - it was 117 points and it cut the other way.

So my conclusion is it its extraordinarily unlikely that undoing the Day 1 zero score would've resulted in any difference on the top podium spot. It would most likely have resulted in a different outcome in 3rd place - which is nothing to sneeze at.

Congrats to all on some great soaring performances.

Andy Blackburn
9B