{"id":6555,"date":"2019-09-05T14:40:02","date_gmt":"2019-09-05T19:40:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesportjournal.org\/?p=6555"},"modified":"2020-06-02T13:45:56","modified_gmt":"2020-06-02T18:45:56","slug":"examination-of-athletic-best-performance-trends-in-track-and-field-over-one-hundred-years-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesportjournal.org\/article\/examination-of-athletic-best-performance-trends-in-track-and-field-over-one-hundred-years-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Examination of Athletic Best Performance Trends in Track and Field Over One Hundred Years\u2019 History"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Authors<\/strong>:<\/strong><\/em> <\/strong>Ran Wei and Yuanlong Liu<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Corresponding author: <\/strong>
Ran Wei, MA
Western Michigan University
1903 W. Michigan Ave., Kalamazoo, MI, USA 49008-5426
Campus Site: Room 4024-4 Student Recreation Center
Phone: (269) 267-2493
Fax: (269) 387-2704
Email: ran.wei@wmich.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ran\nWei is a doctoral student in the PhD-EHD program of College of Education and\nHuman Development. Her emphasis area is Sport Management in the department of\nHuman Performance and Health Education. Dr. Yuanlong Liu is a professor and\nchair of the department of Human Performance and Health Education. His\nspecialty is evaluation and measurement in Kinesiology. He serves as editor and\nassociate editor among multiple journals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Examination of Athletic Best Performance\nTrends in Track and Field Over One Hundred Years\u2019 History<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

ABSTRACT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is always interesting to predict\nfuture performance and explore human limits. In this study, 24 events (running,\njumping, and throwing) were studied from men\u2019s and women\u2019s track and field\nevents. The best yearly performance data and world record data since 1900 to\n2018 were collected. All the events were analyzed by applying longitudinal\nanalysis with scatterplots. The findings revealed that it is encouraging to\nexpect the new world record in men\u2019s shorter running events and women\u2019s longer\nrunning events. However, the waiting time for the new world records in men\u2019s\nlonger running events, women\u2019s shorter running events, and both their field\nevents will be much longer as going into the 21st<\/sup> century. For the\noverall track and field events, both men\u2019s and women\u2019s athletic performance may\nhave reached the asymptotic level. Women\u2019s athletic performances will not\nsurpass men\u2019s performances in track and field in the near future. To explore\ntrack and field performance trends and predict future world records, research\nof new methods and new prediction models are needed when the asymptotic level\nhas been reached.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Keywords<\/strong>: track and field, world record,\nhuman limit, athletic performance trends, athletic gender gap<\/p>\n\n\n\n

INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As announced the re-establishment\nof Modern Olympics in 1892, as well as International Olympic Committee founded\nin 1894, the booming of sports development has never been stopped\n(International Olympic Committee [IOC], 2018). The Olympic motto\n\u201cCitius-Altius-Fortius\u201d (IOC, 2017, p. 23), which means faster-higher-stronger,\nproposed by Pierre de Coubertin, has motivated the athletic professionals to\npursue better performance and new records in their sports. Seeking better\nperformance and new world records has been a hot topic since the beginning of\nthe 20th<\/sup> century (e.g., Dargahi-Noubary, 1994; Liu & Schutz,\n1998; Cheuvront, Carter III, DeRuisseau & Moffatt, 2005). Moreover, the\npredictions of the future ultimate performance and new world records in track\nand field are inaccurate as are the facts (e.g., Reinboud, 2004; Liu, Paul\n& Fu, 2012; M. Weiss, Newman, Whitmore, & S. Weiss, 2016). In addition,\nthe mystery of the performance difference between men and women has been\ndiscussed in the top world journals, Nature<\/em>\nand Science, <\/em>with variety aspects\n(e.g., Reinboud, 2004; Rice, 2004; C. Sharp, 2004; Holden, 2004). All the\ncuriosities still attract the attention and the interests of professionals in\ntrack and field and related fields in the 21st<\/sup> century (e.g.,\nCheuvront et al., 2005; Liu, Paul & Fu, 2012; Stephenson & Tawn, 2013; Berthelot, Sedeaud, Marck,\nAntero-Jacquemin, Schipman, Sauli\u00e8re, & Toussaint, 2015; Weiss et\nal, 2016). Hereby, the purpose of this study was to examine the trends of\nathletic performance for both men and women in the overall track and field\nevents. Moreover, the athletic performance differences between men and women\nwere also explored in this study. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Human limits<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The maximum running speed and best\nperformances were often discussed in the past decade (e.g., Nevill & Whyte,\n2005; Cheuvront et al., 2005; Chang & Kram, 2007; Kruse, Carter, Rosedahl,\n& Joyner, 2014; Berthelot et al., 2015; Weiss et al., 2016) to examine if\nthe human limitations and athletic peak performance were reached. It was argued\nin Holden\u2019s (2004) research that no evidence showed that athletes reached their\nlimits in the past century. Nevill & Whyte (2005) analyzed the world record\nrunning speed and found that men\u2019s athletic performance limits seem not to be\nreached yet but close to the maximum running speed. However, they also revealed\nthe clue that in the 1500-meter race, women runners seem to have reached an asymptotic\nperformance limit. As for a marathon, women appear to reach their performance\nplateau (Cheuvront et al., 2005). Kruse et al. (2014) found that there showed a\nleveling speed increase in the past three decades. Since women legally started\nparticipating in marathons in the late 1970s (e.g., Cheuvront et al., 2005;\nNevill & Whyte, 2005), it is recommended that more data should be collected\nto examine the trends of marathon events (Cheuvront et al, 2005). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Athletic Performance Trends<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The well-known magazines, Science<\/em> and Nature<\/em>, all have publications on the prediction of men\u2019s and\nwomen\u2019s performance trends and the future world records. In 1992, Whipp and\nWard proposed the question \u201cwill women soon outrun men?\u201d in Science<\/em>. They projected that the marathon\nperformance intersection would be 1998. However, it has not happened yet. On Nature<\/em>, another publication also made\nthe prediction that women will outrun men in 2156 in the 100-meter sprint\n(Tatem, Guerra, Atkinson, & Hay, 2004). Compared with men, women made a\ndoubled time improvement rate in short-distance events from 1920s to 1990s.\nBesides, athletic performance difference between gender narrowed faster in\nmarathons (Holden, 2004). According to these studies, it would be a high\npossibility that women may surpass men\u2019s athletic performance someday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there has been different\nvoices in the research world. Holden\u2019s (2004) claimed that it is unlikely that\nwomen would outrun men, owing to the physiological and genetic conditions\n(Berthelot et al., 2015), and biological differences, like aerobic capacity and\nmuscular strength (Cheuvront et al., 2005). As analyzed by Helene and Yamashita\n(2010), force, power, and energy are the key factors which vary runners\u2019\nvelocity to minimize the time performance in a certain distance. Since men have\nmore muscle fibers, larger cross-sectional area of muscle associated with\ngreater strength and more muscle tissue, men can exert more force, power and\nenergy which greatly contribute to the performance difference between men and\nwomen (Ransdell & Wells, 1999). Nevill & Whyte (2005) stated that\nlittle possibility exists that women exceed men\u2019s performance in the middle-\nand long-distance events. Biological in origin, character stood out as the\nsimilar trend of gender differences shown in 100-meter to 10000-meter\n(Cheuvront et al., 2005). It was statistically claimed that women would\ncontinue the long-term running trends with 10-20% slower than men (M. Weiss et al, 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the International\nAssociation of Athletics Federations (IAAF), women\u2019s marathon records before\n1960s were not officially collected. Importantly, since the running routes are\ndifferent for each marathon event, these conditions greatly affect the marathon\nresults. So the claim cannot be thoughtfully supported by men\u2019s and women\u2019s\nresults in order to explain the athletic performance gap in marathons\n(Cheuvront et al, 2005). Moreover, most research data collected were cut off\nbefore the 2010s, with few year\u2019s records, which is not sufficient and reliable\nto make the statement of new trends in track and field in the 21st<\/sup>\ncentury (e.g., Cheuvront et al., 2005; Nevill & Whyte, 2005; M. Weiss et al, 2016). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Three research questions guided\nthis study:<\/p>\n\n\n\n