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All Olympic gold medal winners in the 100m sprint compared in one race
- xeniak 10y ago> based on linear time difference 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?
- emp_ 10y agoIts based on each split. Found a quora link with more details: [1] [1] https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-yellow-world-record-line-in-swimming-competitions-calculated-is-it-assuming-an-even-pace-over-the-whole-distance-or-is-it-where-the-current-WR-holder-was-when-she-or-he-broke-the-WR https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-yellow-world-record-line-in...
- xeniak 10y agoSo the line is most accurate towards the end of a lap, and probably quite inaccurate at the start (given how much speed you gain during a coming out of a turn).
- sleepychu 10y agoThat probably works in the favour of the broadcaster if you don't understand how it's calculated. Exciting to see people on the line of the WR.
- Robelius 10y ago>No point being animated then, as it's unlikely to be accurate. 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.
- xfour 10y agoOne standout by far is Jim Hines in 1968 breaks 10 seconds which is not done again for 12 years and after which point seems to follow a linear downward march.
- danieltillett 10y agoIt is amazing how much of a difference altitude made. We need to hold an Olympics in Lhasa.
- ghaff 10y agoI had wondered if that might be the reason. I looked around and didn't see any explanations but that's logical given that nothing was appreciably above sea level following Mexico City.
- lordnacho 10y agoThat might work for the 100m sprint, but I suspect everything else would be quite challenging. 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.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- arethuza 10y agoI remember skiing at about 3600m and checking the air pressure on my watch and being genuinely surprised to see it was 60% of sea level - no wonder it was noticeable. Particularly if you get a lift that goes pretty much from 1600m to 3200m! I've noticed that about 3000m seems to be the point where I really notice the effect of altitude.
- danieltillett 10y agoYes it would only work for certain events - I would imagine the marathon might be one of the slowest ever. Still it would be an interesting to study how much of an effect it would have.
- jonknee 10y agoMan, Allan Wells seemingly lucked out in 1980 with a 10.25s time when the prior Olympic time was 10.06 and the next time was 9.99. He ran the last time over 10 seconds.
- deepfriedbits 10y agoYep. 66 countries, including the U.S., China, Japan, Canada, Argentina and Israel, boycotted the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow.
- lordnacho 10y agoBy the looks of it, he's also the last guy who wasn't descended from West Africans to win it.
- Osiris30 10y agoSimilar NY Times interactive for the 100m: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/05/sports/olympics/the-100-meter-dash-one-race-every-medalist-ever.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/08/05/sports/olympic...
- honkhonkpants 10y agohttp://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-and-120-years-of-sprinting-history.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympic...
- qwerki 10y agoAnimations and factoids like this are somewhat deceiving. They imply a message that human runners have improved constantly since 1896 without taking into account the fact that in this period the running surface has continually improved, running shoes have gone through significant incremental improvements, starting blocks have been added and timing equipment have become more accurate. 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.
- sndean 10y ago> 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 Also, Mexico City's thin air: http://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2011/05/running-on-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. [1] http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_100ok.htm http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_100ok.htm
- jonmc12 10y agoWas wondering why the 1896 time of 12s was so slow - found this pic of the race - https://www.olympic.org/news/speed-merchant-burke-shines-in-the-sprint https://www.olympic.org/news/speed-merchant-burke-shines-in-.... Running surface, shoes, starting blocks.. exactly. Today there are 8th graders that can run faster than 12s 100M.
- lttlrck 10y agoIt's a little surprising to me there isn't a doping/nutrition bump in there.
- justinator 10y agoIn 1988, Ben Johnson was stripped of his Gold. His time was 9.79, which would not have been beaten until Bolt in 2008 - 20 years later. Johnson admits to doping, but also is adamant that Carl Lewis was also not racing clean.
- ablation 10y ago'The Dirtiest Race in History' is a very good book about this race written by Richard Moore.
- noarchy 10y agoCarl Lewis is open about at least one doping positive, but he claims it had nothing to do with performance enhancement. Almost everyone in that 100m final in Seoul was eventually connected to doping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F04etMA6bgk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F04etMA6bgk
- throwaway_xx9 10y agoI think Ben Johnson also ran a 9.69 the same year. 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.
- andrewvijay 10y agoSo 10.81 is not the expected one this time. Also in the future how far can it reduce? Wow.
- schoen 10y agoOne thing that keeps feeling weird to me is that my time to sprint 100 m on a bicycle roughly tracks the world record to do it on foot, while my time to cycle a marathon course roughly tracks the world record to run it on foot. That really gives me some appreciation for how fit these athletes are! I'm actually not certain whether I could beat the world record runners over any distance at all using my bicycle.
- freditup 10y agoThe world record marathon time, 2:02:57, works out to about 4:41 per mile. It's incredible that someone can keep that pace for 26 miles when most (including me I think) couldn't run that pace for even 200 metres.
- mikekchar 10y agoI don't think you'd have to train much to get to 42k in 2 hours -- at least on a road bike. 20 kph is a pretty leisurely pace and even if you only train 3 days a week for a couple of months, I'm pretty sure you could do it. 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.
- rplnt 10y agoThe record for 100 m on foot and 200 m on bike (on track) are roughly the same, just under 10 seconds. The latter is with flying start though. 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).
- evandijk70 10y agoI agree the sprint will be pretty tough. Just a data point, the world record from Francois Pervis from a standing start for the 1k in cycling is 56.303 seconds, and his 250m split was 17.671 seconds during that record. 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.
- aaron695 10y agoBill Murray (twitter) - Every Olympic event should include one average person competing for reference.
- rplnt 10y agoThat would be dangerous in events that use laps.
- HiroshiSan 10y agoNot if they stay in their lane depending on the event, and just move out of the way when they get lapped.
- usaphp 10y agoAverage person will probably get lapped on the first lap. Current 400m WR is 43s. Average relatively fit person runs 400m in around 1:50s.
- animal531 10y agoWell, you can't get lapped on a 400m (on a normal outdoor track); but definitely true for longer races. Perhaps the normal people can have a whole group on the outside lane just running 200m splits.
- jamies888888 10y agoThis is cool. Would be much cooler though if instead of the animations being linear, they were actually representing the athlete's run. So, Bolt's recent run started slow and sped up after 60m.
- Wozber 10y agonice!
- catacombs 10y agoThe New York Times did a similar story about the fastest male gold medal winners since 1896. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-and-120-years-of-sprinting-history.html http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympic... In my opinion, the graphics are a lot better.
- piqufoh 10y agoPretty neat, but it's not all olympic gold medal winners, we're neglecting a significant half of the population. Where are the women?
- overcast 10y agoThat's why it says 100m Men at the top.
- lukiebriner 10y agoThis crashed the graphics in every tab of Opera when I tried to look at it! Even with this tab closed, had to restart. Gulp.
- denzil_correa 10y agoIt wasn't just me then.
- Kenji 10y agoThe sprints are based on the linear time difference between 0 and 100 meter. That's too bad, and here I thought they would precisely simulate the nonlinear aspects that make the competition so interesting.
- bartfehr 10y agoThanks for the feedback on that one, I put the code up on Github, it's a very simple animation but in the end it seemed to me like less is more in that case :). Here we go! https://github.com/ta-interaktiv/ta-interactive-public https://github.com/ta-interaktiv/ta-interactive-public
- bartfehr 10y agoThanks for the feedback on that one, I put the code up on Github, it's a very simple animation but in the end it seemed to me like less is more in that case :). Here we go: https://github.com/ta-interaktiv/ta-interactive-public https://github.com/ta-interaktiv/ta-interactive-public
- bwooceli 10y agoAll the comments about comparing apples-to-apples have merit. But I see this as a commentary on the advance of civilization overall. What an amazing time in history that we have the luxury of dedicating resources to these pursuits. I hear people complain about the "value" of the arts, music, and amateur sport. I argue that the strength of civilization (global civilization in this case) can in part be measured by how much freedom we have to facilitate the pursuit of individual interests. So yes, the shoes, surface, timing equipment, etc are better - that's the point. What an achievement.
- sangd 10y agoFalse comparison: it's important to point out technologies, tools, track quality, and many other factors in this race. We haven't really improved that many seconds. David Epstein has a very good talk about whether we've really gotten faster, better, stronger: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_getting_faster_better_stronger?language=en&utm_campaign=social&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_content=talk&utm_term=science#t-521303 http://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_g...