Animations 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.
The animation is deceiving simply because it doesn't show acceleration. Those starting blocks you mention will have a big impact on the initial acceleration, but ultimately, the data isn't there; we don't know what meter splits any of those medalists ran.
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.
> The animation is deceiving simply because it doesn't show acceleration. Those starting blocks you mention will have a big impact on the initial acceleration, but ultimately, the data isn't there; we don't know what meter splits any of those medalists ran.
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.
Yeah, it would be great to see something showing split times, so you could see which sprinters are quick off the mark and which ones just have a blisteringly high top end.
Maybe the improvements in the weight of the shoe matter, not just the spikes. Reducing the weight is more than a matter of shaping the shoe - I think most improvements now come from using new materials. The weight is added at an extremity and has to be lifted every time you pull your foot up. I know this makes a noticeable difference for long distances, but I'm not sure about sprints, where you take a much smaller number of much more powerful steps.
Was 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-.... Running surface, shoes, starting blocks.. exactly. Today there are 8th graders that can run faster than 12s 100M.
"They imply a message that human runners have improved constantly since 1896"
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.
The question is whether or not Thomas Burke would have been able to beat Usain Bolt if he'd had access to modern training, diet, technology, etc. We can't know if training or talent accounts for the > 2 seconds difference. It seems reasonable to assume it'd at least be a closer race than the times imply though.
> We can't know if training or talent accounts for the > 2 seconds difference
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
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.
Again it's not a very useful to compare a (not purely athletic) competition in it's infancy a century ago with a sprint which people have been doing for thousands of years.
And again the analogy is poor because modern bodybuilders look radically different for multiple reasons that go beyond simply training, nutrition and knowledge.
Don't avoid the elephant: drugs. Steroid cycles today eclipse Arnold's day by a staggering amount. Hell, most use oil (synthol) to make their muscles symmetrical.
I have no doubt that the same usage (albeit more sophisticated drugs) happens at the Olympics.
> 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.
Quality of musical instrument is huge factor too. I play trombone and I improved significantly only by buying new instrument without changing my practice routine. It is just "cheap" amateur instrument.
Thanks for pointing that out. I read a Beethoven bio recently and it kept talking about "the quality of musicians available at the time," meaning they were quite inferior. I guess what you're saying is part of that observation.
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.
Here are two changes that I would like to see discussed:
- 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)
Timing and timing source accuracy was the first place my mind went to after seeing the animation. I believe that when I ran cross-country and track, decades ago, that the timings were tracked by hand, even at regional and state competitions (in my experience and to my knowledge).
> 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
I recently learned that in the early part of the 20th century the runners would dig their own holes to start out of. Sometimes they were even given trowels.
I still remember doing this in high school. Well, not me, but those who were in the most competitive races would dig up the dirt a bit and use those holes, everyone in the less competitive races would just start upright.
Yes, the material got better, but my opinion is that these are not the main factor for these kinds of improvements in the last century.
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.
> 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.
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.
One 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.
The 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.
I just checked the 10,000m race in the Olympics, and they're coming in at 27 minutes, or 22km/h. It would definitely be a close race on my mountain bike with knobby tires. Very impressive.
I'm riding a carbon road bike and I have to say that 22km/h is insanely fast for a runner. I'm not that much faster but I also do it for 6 hours straight. (with wind and some climbing)
It's still mind boggling that a guy could run besides me for 10 kilometres.
I 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.
I 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.
The 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).
Just to note, I wasn't even thinking about the standing start part! (I appreciate people's calculations on that point.) Even ignoring the standing start, the fastest speed I seem to be able to reach on my bike on level ground is about 35-40 kph, which is about as fast as Usain Bolt runs in sprint events.
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.
That's quite surprising. For 100 mi (160 km), that means you are in the saddle for more than 8 hours! That's pretty impressive in itself. I helped my wife train up from nothing (not having ridden a bike in 20 years) to a 90 km ride in 4 hours. Admittedly we were riding 5 days a week, but it only took 3 months. One thing you might try (if you are keen) is riding shorter distances at higher intensity (say 25 km in 1 hour).
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.
Halving the 100 mile running record would be something I could probably do tomorrow utilizing a bike. And I could repeat that feat a few days in a row.
Bicycles are really awesome, but this is also an indication that you're a better cyclist than I am. :-)
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.
So 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).
>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.
One 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.
Although, notice these are just the finishing times in the Olympic final, not the world records at the time. So it's dependent on things like weather conditions and altitude.
I 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.
I 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.
This 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.
Thanks 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!
False 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_g...
All 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.
Man, 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.
In 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.
Carl 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.
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.