OT (a bit): Faster and Stronger? | The Boneyard

OT (a bit): Faster and Stronger?

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Wally East

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In the '95 vs. '09 thread, the point came up that athletes are stronger and faster now than they used to be. The idea of track and field records being broken regularly in the Olympics was mentioned.

So, math time. Initially, I checked the average age of the track and field records. I've switched to the median age (it's just better and regret using average earlier).

Disclaimers: I used track and field because it involves running, jumping, and throwing (although mostly not by the same person). It is the most quantifiable sport. It is the least affected by technology used in the sport itself (no faster, buoyant suits or faster bikes here).

I cut out: relays, walking events, and events that aren't held often. For collegiate records, I eliminated records set by non-American born athletes and used the American-born record instead.

Yes, there are problems with using track and field records. These include the problems the sport has had with performance enhancing drugs. To that specific point, I'd ask if you believe high school athletes are using PEDs, too, or if you believe only track and field athletes are using PEDs (which starts to get into whether there's PED use in women's college basketball, including UConn).

In any event, here you are, category of the records and then median age of the records in that category (all of these are outdoor track):


world-men 8.92
world-women 14.68
american-men 15.17
american-women 8.45
college-men 20.00
college-women 8.39
high school-men 8.76
high school-women 9.42
 

UcMiami

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Really interesting.
I wonder if world women number is affected by the pre-fall of the iron curtain Eastern European medical machine? as it stands out pretty as the only significant women's record length greater than the mens.
And I also wonder if there is something in the american and college mens records that relates to PEDs era, but would expect that to carry through internationally. And as you sat HS is probably the cleanest, and interesting that mens and womens are closest here, and they are the shortest duration as a combined total by quite a wide margin.
 

Wally East

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That's a good point about Communist Eastern Europe.

Of the 13 women's world records that are more than 20 years old that I included, 10 are from the Eastern Bloc or China (Flo Jo holds two and Jackie Joyner holds the last).

It could be PEDs at work for American and collegiate men, it could a structural issue (T&F losing more athletes to other sports in increasing numbers), or something else.
 

UcMiami

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The idea of fewer great athletes pursuing T&F might be a point - certainly professionally for women T&F is probably the best professional prospect as there are no super sized pro contracts available in other sports (tennis and golf excepted.). For men T&F can be a good living but the big money is in other pro sports.
 

DobbsRover2

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The idea of fewer great athletes pursuing T&F might be a point - certainly professionally for women T&F is probably the best professional prospect as there are no super sized pro contracts available in other sports (tennis and golf excepted.). For men T&F can be a good living but the big money is in other pro sports.
As someone who covers the track world, I'd have to say that track is very problematic to use as a marker for anything. All of the above factors -- drugs and the disappearance of East Germany, money and lack of money, interest or lack of interest, American and foreign-born athletes, good coaches and the lack of them -- provide a huge complexity that simple records numbers can't explain. At the high school level to remove the foreign-born athletes (West Indian mainly) from the equation eliminates too many of the best tracksters who often are the ones who today take the sport most seriously. High school track in general just does not have the same level of participation from young athletes as it did 50 years ago, though in states like my NY there have been a number of trends leading to a mini-renaissance for elite athletes. And at the college level which is the important middleman to the pros, there is this institution called the NCAA whose job it is to do mainly squat. I have strong hopes for the high school and professional levels in the future because of the the rise of club teams, but very little for the college level.

And probably instead of just using outdoor marks in your calculations, a better method would be to use faster times and longer distances no matter where they were run, though outdoor usually has better marks. For instance, the girls 3000m in your calculations probably is from 1975, but our local girl Mary Cain of Bronxville smashed that by 6 seconds on a much tougher indoor course this year. That lops 38 years from the total right there, and Mary will likely go under 9 minutes if Alberto lets her do a distance run this year, plus knocking off another old timer in the 800m. And I hope you did not include any distance beyond at most the 5000m because athletes rarely run 10000 meters in HS and the best runners never really get a chance to take a crack at it.

Finally, as an old guy, I just have to say that they don't make them like they used to.
 

VAMike23

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This discussion about WR that are 20+ years old makes this performance from London all the more spectacular:

 

Wally East

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Ooops, I should've noted that I used Track and Field News as the source. In the high school girl's section, it notes Mary Cain's 9:02 and that's what I used. For high schoolers, I did exclude everything beyond 5000 m. I did not limit it to high school-only competitions since that seemed silly.

I only removed foreign-born athletes at the college level. Excluding them made it more specific to US athletes. I can run the numbers again but include them.

The disappearance of Eastern Europeans would affection world records but not American ones, obviously. The rest of the factors are pretty constant, more or less.

In any event (pun intended! Ha!), using track as a marker was easy. I'm always open to suggestions for a different way to measure whether athletes now are faster and stronger than they were X years ago.
 

Wally East

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This discussion about WR that are 20+ years old makes this performance from London all the more spectacular:

Indeed. There were only two relay records and one solo record set in T&F combined by men and women.
 

DobbsRover2

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Ooops, I should've noted that I used Track and Field News as the source. In the high school girl's section, it notes Mary Cain's 9:02 and that's what I used. For high schoolers, I did exclude everything beyond 5000 m. I did not limit it to high school-only competitions since that seemed silly.

I only removed foreign-born athletes at the college level. Excluding them made it more specific to US athletes. I can run the numbers again but include them.

The disappearance of Eastern Europeans would affection world records but not American ones, obviously. The rest of the factors are pretty constant, more or less.

In any event (pun intended! Ha!), using track as a marker was easy. I'm always open to suggestions for a different way to measure whether athletes now are faster and stronger than they were X years ago.
Ah, then T&F is going with just all-time bests at a distance since Mary definitely was not running outside in January (actually, UWash fieldhouse in Seattle), which is the way it should be done. The foreign athletes at the college level is a more problematic issue since guys like Eamonn Coghlan were running here decades ago but the much greater use of foreign athletes has largely displaced the top American-born runners although also challenging them to higher efforts for a few elite athletes.

FWIW, I have done some articles and surveys comparing boys and girls competition levels and to era-based comparisons, and I try to use a mix of data that does include winners or the top-rated athlete in an event along with averages for the top 10 to 50 best performances. I started off using just the champions but immediately ran into the Mary Cain skew factor. Is she representative or is she an outlier? Is the 1500m guys' winner she is matched against getting too tough a matchup for comparisons? It is far more time consuming, but I think looking at a larger population leaves less room for misrepresentations of the conditions, assuming that data is available, which is often a big if. In general, I find for NY that the performance levels for the guys has remained fairly steady over the last 20 years with a slight enhancement in the majority of events. With the girls the enhancement has been more dramatic, especially in the distance events, but again, this is just NY. I am also writing an article now on a group of records that were set 30 years ago at the national and state level and the events and people behind them, and even some of the top track authorities are amazed when I tell them that these records still are alive, though at one level down (ie, national to state).
 

UcMiami

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Dobbs - interesting stuff - didn't realize you focus on T&F. In the other thread I actually posited that using the 'field' might be a better indicator than the record as 'outliers' are thrown out at random times. The long jump record that no one including the record holder came close to for decades was one such.
This discussion originated in my thinking that the 1995 team was dominant in their era as shown by the Uconn records they hold (and the seconds and thirds) but because of the evolution of the athletes, the 2009 team would probably beat them easily, though they might not have been as exceptional in their era.
 

DobbsRover2

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Well, a comparative against peers is definitely another way to look at an athlete or a team's performance. The top runner from 1980 for instance may be running a little behind the top runner of today, but if he was dominating his competition by a much wider margin than today's top runner, maybe the old guy was better. T&F stat and records geeks tend to be the worst ornery breed of data twisters anywhere, but the issue is that there are really no clear cut rules for determining performance levels. Easy, just take the time or height you might say, but there are so many factors that revolve around any race that T&F experts can pick on to prove their own bias that nothing is really ever settled firmly, except that someone ran a race and they won it, or lost it.

It is the same scenario for determining WCBB performance. Does UConn 2013's record margin of victory in the NC make it the best team ever? That proves nothing, as many other factors need to be placed on the scales. The battling over the details is something that makes sports analysis such a headache and so much fun.
 
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