Olympic Champions and world record holders

It’s hard to believe that the Olympics Games in Beijing took place nearly a year ago given the many unforgettable performances witnessed by the world. For most people, one athlete’s performances stand out in particular. Michael Phelps undoubtedly took the show with an unprecedented 8 gold medals, 7 world records and 1 Olympic record. In total, Phelps has won more gold medals than any OIympian with 14 and has broken 35 world records the last of which he broke just today at the World Championships.

Phelps is definitely one of the greatest athletes of all time, with more to come. Call me biased, but Phelps’ records are a little overplayed relative to Bolt’s world record performances on the track at 100m, 200m and the 4×100m relay. Here’s why.

Since comparing the two sports directly isn’t an equal comparison, I will represent the records in terms of percentages.

The 50m freestyle and the 100m dash are the shortest sprint races contested at the Olympics in swimming and track and field respectively. a quick look at the world record progression (50m free/100m dash) shows that over the course of 33 years, the 50m freestyle world record has dropped 2.92 seconds, representing a 12.24% change. On the other hand, the 100m dash record (discounting the pre-electronic timing era) has fallen from 10.06 to 9.69; a 3.68% change over 44 years. Furthermore, in the case of swimming, we often see the same record broken multiple times in the same meet. In track, this hardly happens and the time in between record changes is much longer except when someone breaks their own record.

The same comparison can be made for the 100m freestyle and the 200m dash, the next distance up in each respective sport. Starting in 1975, until the 2008 Summer Games in which records were broken in both events, the swimming record fell 7.96% compared to the track record’s 2.27%. Looking at progressions for other records, the drop in the swimming records are much more dramatic over time compared to track records with track records being broken less frequently. It would seem, judging by the rate of world record progression, that swimming records have not approached the limit that track records are at currently.

This is also demonstrated by the fact that over the course of the last 8 years, Phelps has broken his own 200m butterfly record 7 times dropping his record by 2.96%. Usain Bolt broke his own 100m dash record by 0.31% and Michael Johnson’s 200m dash record by only 0.10%. Bolt’s 200 record was even even more impressive due to the fact that many considered Johnson’s 19.32 record as unbreakable. Phelps was able to break 7 records due to the sheer number of event distances and strokes for him to swim. As a versatile and dominant swimmer, he can swim the same distance using multiple strokes. Bolt doesn’t have the same options available to him.

Bolt’s records are a more impressive historic achievement despite the fact that the swimming records are broken with much greater margins and frequency. Swimming records still have some ways to go before athletes physical ability to break them will be questioned. Phelps is no doubt an astonishing athlete, but Bolt’s record breaking performances still awe me in a way that Phelps’ performances never did for me.

I realize my comparisons are highly unscientific and very rough so feel free to tell me I’m wrong. Although there are others with me on this one.

Further reading

• USA Today’s comparison of Bolt and Phelps
• http://kempton.wordpress.com/2008/08/16/usain-bolt-vs-michael-phelps/

Not two months ago, superstar sprinter Usain Bolt flipped his car into a ditch. The accident resulted in Bolt getting surgery on some wounds he obtained exiting the wrecked car. Despite this setback, Bolt came back this past week (to the dismay of his coach) in a publicity 150m race held on a specially constructed track in the streets of Manchester.

Bolt shattered the world best with a time of 14.35, but even more impressive was how fast he covered the last 100m. After the first 50m, Bolt ran the next 100m in 8.72. That’s unbelievably staggering especially considering the level of fitness Bolt’s in after missing some training. This 100m split is 0.97 seconds off Bolt’s 9.69 world record set at the Beijing Olympic Games. In my experience, a block start shouldn’t add a full second to a flying time, especially for a sprinter of Bolt’s caliber.

We have yet to see the best of Bolt. A rather conservative estimate on my part puts the WR at 9.4X, but only time will tell. I doubt that he’d go for this, but I would really like to see Bolt own records at every distance from 100-400m (he’s already halfway there). It’s a good time for Puma’s marketing department, that’s for sure.

Check out the race for yourself at Universal Sports

As of today, China leads not only the overall medal count, but the gold medal count as well (China 9, U.S. 3). While i don’t expect the discrepancy to last for long (espescially once track and field gets under way), I strongly believe that China will give the United States a strong run for it’s money in terms of overall medals.

So far we’ve seen some epic performances, most notably in swimming, fencing and basketball but there are stil nearly two weeks of competition. I typically find myself watching two TV channels at once and stream another event on my computer. You might call me some sort of Olympics addict. Derek posted some stunning photos over on Markfive, and Gizmodo has an interesting read about the opening ceremony here. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have 3 screens worth of Olympics to watch!

Update: More on the trials.

Video after the jump.

Andrew Weating wasn’t expected to do anything in this race. His achievement is even more incredible if you consider the fact that Wheating only started running track during his senior year of high school and only competed at 800m once. The Vermont native thought he was a 5k runner but his 2nd place finish at the NCAA championships and at the trials as well as his 3:38 1500m solidify him as an elite mid-distance talent. I’ll be curious to see how he does in Beijing. It will be pretty tough to follow up the 800m race from the Olympics in Athens.

In the sprints, we’ve got two 100m world recordists from Jamaica, Asafa Powell and Usain Bolt, competing against American record holder Tyson Gay. While Gay failed to capture the elusive 100m world record (his races never seem to be wind legal), he still managed to impress by running the fastest 100m time ever recorded: 9.68. The 400m relay promises to be equally as exciting as the duo of Powell and Bolt will make it hard for Team USA to redeem itself after losing by 0.01 seconds to Great Britain in Athens.

One event where the U.S. has been historically dominant is the 400m. You could say America is to the 400, as Kenya is to distance running. In Athens we saw the emergence of Jeremy Wariner as he lead a USA sweep of the 400 as well as a strong performance in the 1600m relay. Wariner has been #1 at 400m since ’04 but defending his gold medal won’t be easy. Kerron Clement handed Wariner is first loss earlier this year in IAAF Golden League competition and again at the Olympic trials. This is a red flag on Wariner’s decision to change coaches and nothing less than a gold medal will silence critics of the move such as myself. There is no doubt in my mind that the U.S. will finish 1-2 again in the 400m. The question is who will get the gold. The real excitement in this news however, is its implications for this year’s 1600m relay. I think this year’s team has a shot at the world record. It’s only a matter of time before we find out.

Olympic years are the few times when people actually (kind of) care about track and field. If you’re one of those people who thinks it’s boring to “watch people run in circles”, I can guarantee that at least the aforementioned races will change your mind. If not, maybe you’d appreciate their talent more after you go out and try to run 400m in less than 55 seconds. I dare you…Wariner’s best is 43.45. You do the math.