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.
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.
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.
> 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.
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 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.
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.
>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.
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.
[+] [-] qwerki|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] kazinator|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] jonmc12|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] TheLarch|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] dnackoul|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] sschueller|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sndean|9 years ago|reply
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.
[1] http://www.alltime-athletics.com/m_100ok.htm
[+] [-] antognini|9 years ago|reply
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=...
[+] [-] njharman|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DominikR|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] denzil_correa|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] schoen|9 years ago|reply
I'm actually not certain whether I could beat the world record runners over any distance at all using my bicycle.
[+] [-] freditup|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Guest98123|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mikekchar|9 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] justinator|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] justinator|9 years ago|reply
Thus the power of the bicycle ;)
[+] [-] unknown|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] aaron695|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rplnt|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xeniak|9 years ago|reply
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_|9 years ago|reply
Found a quora link with more details: [1]
[1] https://www.quora.com/How-is-the-yellow-world-record-line-in...
[+] [-] Robelius|9 years ago|reply
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|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bo1024|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danieltillett|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] taneq|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jamies888888|9 years ago|reply
[+] [-] catacombs|9 years ago|reply
In my opinion, the graphics are a lot better.
[+] [-] bartfehr|9 years ago|reply
https://github.com/ta-interaktiv/ta-interactive-public
[+] [-] Osiris30|9 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] Kenji|9 years ago|reply
That's too bad, and here I thought they would precisely simulate the nonlinear aspects that make the competition so interesting.
[+] [-] lukiebriner|9 years ago|reply
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