Olympic Weightlifting: A Sport Of Numbers.
Can we do better than the Sinclair Total? And my search for the Nel-Sinclair Coefficient.
About a year ago, while training with my friend Ruben, we started talking about the Sinclair Formula and the Sinclair Coefficient and how he thought it was biased.
The Sinclair:
The Sinclair Formula was introduced by Roy Sinclair, a Canadian mathematician, in 1980. The Sinclair formula uses the weight of the current world record holder in the +105kg weight class as a reference. Here’s the breakdown:
A = 0.794358141
B = 174.393 (Body weight of current +105kg World record holder.)
x= Lifter’s body weight
y = Lifter’s total
Sinclair Total = y*(10**(A*(log(x/B, 10)**2)))
where * means multiplication and ** means exponentiation.
What the Sinclair total then does is that it provides a method of comparison by projecting how much a lifter would total if he were to move up to the +105kg weight class. The issue with this method is that this weight class is the least populated one and the most scattered since it has no weight cap.
The IWF (international Weightlifting Federation) has results of every international competition since 1998. Using the Sinclair Formula on that data we find that the top 20 lifters according to this formula have been:
The Nel-Sinclair Coefficient:
My revised version of the comparison method has a few steps:
- Find the logarithmic curve that best approximates all eight world records.
- Find the difference between a user’s total and the value on the logarithmic curve corresponding to his body weight plus a correction factor.
- Find the quotient between the logarithm of the user’s total and the logarithm of the absolute value of step 2.
The logarithmic curve that best approximates all eight world records looks something like this:
When we apply then the Nel-Sinclair to the data obtained from the IWF we get the following list for the top 20 lifters:
As you can see, Jaber Saed Salem jumps from 7th to 1st, Ilya Ilyin from 10th to 2nd, and Halil Mutlu from 9th to 7th. However, Hui Liao and Xiaojun Lyu suffered a huge hit dropping from 1st and 6th to 9th and 10th, respectively. This still work in progress but I believe I’m getting closer to a more fair comparison method. I’ll keep you posted on my progress as new results develop.
Cheers,
El Nel
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