Who is Andy Irons' statistical twin?
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Kelly Slater. Of the 158 Championship Tour careers in our pool, his sits closest to Andy's, at a model distance of 1.2.
Whose Championship Tour career looks most like Andy Irons'? We went looking with numbers, not opinions. In memory of Andy, this is his career stat by stat, and the careers that sit closest to it.
How we compared careers
Two steps. First, each of Andy's 12 stats was ranked against the field he surfed against. Then the result was compared with every other career in our pool: 158 men's Championship Tour careers with at least 60 rated heats.
How the model works explains every stat, how the distance is measured and what we leave out.
What stood out
- #1 of the 158 careers in our pool in event win rate.
- #1 in win rate in 3 or 4 man heats.
- #4 in finals reached.
The surprise was consistency: Andy sat at the 42nd career percentile there. His heat scores swung more than most.
The 5 closest careers
- Kelly Slater, model distance 1.2
- Jack Robinson, model distance 1.4
- Gabriel Medina, model distance 2.0
- Filipe Toledo, model distance 2.4
- John John Florence, model distance 2.5
Smaller means more alike. The distance has no unit: it only means something next to the other distances. The episode page has Andy's full fingerprint and the longer list of the closest careers.
Andy and Kelly Slater
Kelly Slater is the closest match of all 158 careers. Flip it and look at Slater's own list: Andy is up front there too. These two sit closest to each other.
Same fingerprint: finals reached, win rate in 3 or 4 man heats, heat win rate. The real gap is scoring. In scoring vs the field, Andy sits at the 83rd career percentile and Slater at the 92nd.
But against the fields they faced, Andy turned more events into wins. Event win rate: 88th to 82nd.
Who's next?
Who should we find a statistical twin for next? Drop a name on @surf.stats.