4 ms·
This isn't the whole story. High school track times are faster now than world champions 40 years ago.
by cm2012 9y ago
This isn't the whole story. High school track times are faster now than world champions 40 years ago.
- yorwba 9y agoAverage high school track times? That would surprise me. Do you have a source?
- CreateChange 9y agoHe definitely wasn't saying average, though I would be sure that those have gotten better as well, but simply due to better training practices.
- goatlover 9y agoAlso, better shoes and track surfaces.
- nradov 9y agoSame for swimming. Champion high school girls now routinely break the men's world records set decades ago.
- prh8 9y agoI wouldn't quite go that far. In 1936, Jesse Owens won the Olympics with a 10.3. Athletic.net[1] (which is not perfectly complete but close enough for reference) shows 33 high schoolers who ran 10.39 or better in 2017. So yes some are faster, but that's almost zero and 80 years later. None of these high schoolers have matched the 9.55 at the 1968 Olympics. [1]: https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?DivID=79871&Event=1 https://www.athletic.net/TrackAndField/Division/Event.aspx?D...
- cm2012 9y agoRecords for the 1 minute mile are closer. Especially since records aren't broken every Olympics.
- prh8 9y agoDo you mean the 4 minute mile? The mile record has been consistently dropping from the 50s until 1999. However, only 10 high schoolers have broken 4 minutes, although 4 have been in the last 3 years. The closest high schoolers have been to it would be Jim Ryun in 1965, only 2 seconds off.
- goatlover 9y ago4 in 3 years is impressive. There were 3 in the 60s including Ryun, between 1965-1967.
- cm2012 9y agoRecords for the 1 minute mile are closer. Especially since records aren't broken every Olympics.
- icelancer 9y ago>Jesse Owens won the Olympics with a 10.3 Jesse Owens also ran in terrible spikes on an ash cinder track. Jesse would threaten to break 10 flat if they used today's equipment with the very hard tracks in use today.
- goatlover 9y agoOwens also didn't have starting blocks.
- nl 9y agoThe 1968 winning time was 9.95, not 9.55. I assume that was a typo!
- goatlover 9y agoJim Ryun ran a 3:55 mile in the 1960s. The world record for the mile 40 years ago in 1977 was 3:49. The high school mile record is 3:53 set in 2001. The HS 800 record of 1:46.45 was set in 1996, which is just slight faster than the world record in 1939.