Elitetrack: Sport Training & Conditioning

The recent slew of WRs in the 100m over the past couple years has given rise to the notion that 100m performances have reached a hyper-speed acceleration. The data doesn’t really support this though. In fact, if there was ever a time warranting suspicion it should have been 1996. I’ve taken some data that I found over at Track & Field News message board and put together some charts and figures.


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Mike:

I agree that for the most part 100m performances haven’t increased to inhuman performance levels.  However, I think it’s fair to say that the top 10 performances have and they have skewed the data downward.  I also posted earlier that I believe the steriod era hit its height in the mid 90’s.  Look at the trend of sub 10.25’s after BALCO broke in 2003, the number of sub 10.25’s dropped dramatically till 2005 and started trending upwards again in 2006.  We should look at what causes the rise and fall of these numbers.

I think the peak PED era for the world (not any country in particular but the world scene in general) was 88-96.

I actually think the BALCO stuff wasn’t so widespread to have a MAJOR impact on a 100 deep list. That type of customized undetectable stuff was mainly at the top of the charts and not available (due to financial constraints) to the middling performers even if they did want it. As for the top performances, you could be right though. I think the effect your seeing from 2003 on, is more stringent testing though. I think the rise and fall of the numbers tend to be linked to the quadreniums. Olympic years will generally get everyone off their rockers which raises the level of competition and the number of competitors. In off years, many choose to sit out or take low-key seasons. There’s a ton of factors at play but I think that’s the most pertinent one.

I’m obviously reading this wrong because why would the top 50 times be slower then the top 100?  Anyway, to me 96-00 seems to be very roidish....

You weren’t reading it wrong. I just had the titles mixed. They’re fixed now. Thanks for catching.