All Olympic gold medal winners in the 100m sprint compared in one race
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As an example, everyone heralds Jim Hines for breaking 10 seconds in 1968 but not many acknowledge the fact that the Mexico 1968 was the first Olympic Games to use the Tartan track surface in athletics instead of what was essentially hardened sand.
Also, Mexico City's thin air: http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2011/05/running-on-thin-air... Bob Beamon set his insane long jump record there as well.
Edit: But looking at the all-time list [1], Jim Hines' run is still pretty impressive, surrounded by times run some ~50 years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starting_blocks
I wasn't sure if I could believe Wikipedia because it sounded a little crazy, but it's at least in a couple of books, too:
https://books.google.com/books?id=Mn7mCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA223&lpg=...
https://books.google.com/books?id=k0rCTsicBa8C&pg=PA145&lpg=...
Regarding running shoes though, there really are no "running shoes" to speak of in sprinting. I doubt that changes in sprinting spikes have made any difference in many decades. There are only so many ways to make a toe spike plate with a negligible heel, sewn up into a room slipper.
I'm going to google for images and surrounding info about historic sprinting spikes now. [...] Hmm, one obvious difference is that the pre-1960's spikes were looong due to the track surfaces before tartan. Those nails look like what is used for cross-country today, wow. They would not even be allowed on a modern track.
For any Olympic races held after the availability of video recording, you could get a reasonable approximation of split times, with careful review of the video and timer. Not with the same degree of precision as the race timers themselves, but with enough precision to compare acceleration.
But they have! World population increased from one billion to 7.4. Also I imagine that the proportion of people who have the opportunity to train for the Olympics has increased. Already you'd expect a vastly improved pool of talent. Additionally though diet and training techniques have improved steadily. Do you really think Bolt couldn't beat Thomas Burke (12s 100m 1896)?
The same effect is apparent among classical musicians. I can't figure out how to Google this, but my understanding is that pieces once considered nearly impossible to play are routinely played at music schools now.
Yeah, but there's a few Alkan pieces I have yet to see a proper rendition of. Liszt even stated that Alkan "had the finest technique of any pianist" known to him, so I imagine he could in fact play them correctly.
I am sure if I train I would reduce my timing from 17s to 15s.
Training, nutrition and knowledge of physiology accounts for a lot of this time.
Don't think about Bolt, think about the slowest person running in that race (Trayvon Brommel USA 10.08s according to Google, Bolt was 0.25s faster)
Another thing to try: search for bodybuilders and "strong man" pictures of the beginning of the 20th century. Then search for "Arnold's generation" then see what bodybuilders look like today. Those guys from the beginning of the century look like (or even worse than) your dedicated amateur gym goer today
To be fair Thomas Burke probably needed a day job
That's quite a bit more than training, nutrition and knowledge of physiology.
> Those guys from the beginning of the century look like (or even worse than) your dedicated amateur gym goer today
Afaik "strong man" =/= bodybuilder so just as most weightlifters don't look like bodybuilders the "strongmen" of yore didn't necessarily look like bodybuilders either.
Yes, I wrongly assumed there weren't "exclusive" bodybuilders on 1920 but it seems there are
But you can look at both for comparison
And again the analogy is poor because modern bodybuilders look radically different for multiple reasons that go beyond simply training, nutrition and knowledge.
I have no doubt that the same usage (albeit more sophisticated drugs) happens at the Olympics.
In addition to equipment and rules changes, training and nutritional techniques have evolved quite a bit over the last century. NFL players, for example, used to smoke cigarettes at half time. All things equal, the modern athletes probably are better.
This is a really great topic and we have some relevant experience on our team. I'll see if I can rope one of them into giving a deeper answer or putting up a blog post.
- timing method (hand-clocked times apparently were a tiny bit faster)
- elasticity of the running surface (if you wonder why they added lanes to the track but kept six sprinters in each race: you go faster on an inelastic surface, but running on it is less comfortable, to the extent that doing a 5k run is too painful. So, the innermost lane is softer)
This is the single most problem of comparing sportsmen across eras - you just can not do it. There are so many variables to model that it leaves with more questions than answers.
Athletes competing today at that level basically have a staff of trainers, physicians and nutritionists that help them train better, perfect their movement and eat better. They also in most cases pursue this as a full time career which wasn't so in the old days.
As a result the physique of athletes today is very different than those of athletes a 100 years ago.
There are also disciplines where material improvements are too insignificant to explain the kind of improved performances we saw in the last decades. Take for example weight lifting. It's hard to argue that better shoes could have been the main contributor to the massive improvements in the last decades.
I'm actually not certain whether I could beat the world record runners over any distance at all using my bicycle.
100m in 9.6 seconds from a standing start, though... That would be pretty tough. You'd need a fixed gear bike, I think, and crazy grippy tyres :-) I've never ridden track and I often wonder what kind of acceleration those guys can get.
As for the 10s from standing still, it shouldn't be that hard. I think I could do it, and while I do use my bikes somewhat often, I'm by no means an "athlete". Anyway, having a fixed gear wouldn't play any role in it, nor would have the grippiness of tyres (they are all grippy enough).
Assuming he reached his max speed at 100m and than held on to that speed until the finish, his 100m split was 10.0 seconds.
Obviously there are some questionable assumptions in there, but this is a world record holder on an event that is very close to an all out sprint, and these calculations suggest that he was slower than Bolt over the initial 100m.
I think a world class track cyclist could do it with a lower ratio on their gear than normal could do it, but a regular Joe most definitely couldn't.
But the acceleration issue is clearly also very significant and I hadn't put much thought into it.
It's still faster than current my long-distance pace. What people tell me I'm missing is that I've never adopted clipless pedals (pedal cleats) and am still riding flat pedals even over 100 km and 100 mi distances. So I'm not getting power on the upstroke as 95% of the other event participants probably are.
I suspect the more important part is that you are getting better power while pushing down because your foot is always in the optimal position.
Edit: it's discussed at https://bicycles.stackexchange.com/questions/14059/are-there...
As for clipless pedals, I'll agree with the other poster who says that they have limited value for power. Their main use (IMHO) is safety. Never again have your foot slip off the pedals when it is raining. Never again have to concentrate on your feet when you are riding over uneven surfaces. I've spent a fair amount on my bike and nothing has come close to the value of clipless pedals in terms of increasing the enjoyment of my ride.
It's still mind boggling that a guy could run besides me for 10 kilometres.
Thus the power of the bicycle ;)
However, you did succeed in finding a distance over which I can beat the world record runner, as my 100 mile cycling time is already better than the world record for running 100 miles. But not half of it!
I have a colleague who's an ultramarathon runner, and another thing that I find amazing is that, for what I believe is at least the past 8 years or so, his longest running distance has consistently been longer than my longest cycling distance. Every time I've completed a new longer distance on my bike, he's also completed a longer ultramarathon that was also longer than my bike event. It's not a competition; we just both keep periodically increasing our distances and his level of fitness (and ambition) is incredible.
Perhaps the normal people can have a whole group on the outside lane just running 200m splits.
No point being animated then, as it's unlikely to be accurate.
I always wonder how accurate the WR line is for swimming events... is it linear, base on splits, or more granular?
Found a quora link with more details: [1]
[1] https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-yellow-world-record-line-in...
The point isn't to show how the pacing would look if you lined up all the winners. It's to show the difference in finishing times throughout the century plus.
I walked around Cuzco (~3200m) and I felt very slightly out of breath. Any jogging would have me panting quite fast.
It's high enough that drinks bottles that I'd bought in Cuzco would slightly collapse when I came down to the coast at Lima.
I've noticed that about 3000m seems to be the point where I really notice the effect of altitude.
Still it would be an interesting to study how much of an effect it would have.
In my opinion, the graphics are a lot better.
That's too bad, and here I thought they would precisely simulate the nonlinear aspects that make the competition so interesting.
Everybody knew it was roids, but even so it indicated that the human body was capable of it.
Johnson has a reputation in the gym for squatting as much as powerlifters.