title: The analysis and forecasting of male cycling time trial records established within England and Wales.
abstract: The format of cycling time trials in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, involves riders competing individually over several fixed race distances of 10-100 miles in length and using time constrained formats of 12 and 24 h in duration. Drawing on data provided by the national governing body that covers the regions of England and Wales, an analysis of six male competition record progressions was undertaken to illustrate its progression. Future forecasts are then projected through use of the Singular Spectrum Analysis technique. This method has not been applied to sport-based time series data before. All six records have seen a progressive improvement and are non-linear in nature. Five records saw their highest level of record change during the 1950-1969 period. Whilst new record frequency generally has reduced since this period, the magnitude of performance improvement has generally increased. The Singular Spectrum Analysis technique successfully provided forecasted projections in the short to medium term with a high level of fit to the time series data.
authors.affiliation: a Faculty of Science & Technology , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK.
authors.forename: Bryce
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Dyer
authors.affiliation: b The Statistical Research Centre , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK.
authors.forename: Hossein
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hassani
authors.affiliation: b The Statistical Research Centre , Bournemouth University , Poole , UK.
authors.forename: Mehran
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shadi
mesh_terms: D054874:Athletic Performance / Q000639:trends*; D001642:Bicycling / Q000639:trends*; D004739:England; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D014852:Wales
keywords: Cycling; forecasting; performance; singular spectrum analysis