An interesting item made the rounds of assorted newspapers this weekend … here’s the version from the Sun Times:
Not only have Olympic swimmers and sprinters gotten faster over the last 100 years — but they have grown in average size at a much faster rate than the normal population, a new analysis finds.
While the average human has gained about 1.9 inches in height since 1900, the research shows that the fastest swimmers have grown 4.5 inches and the swiftest runners have grown 6.4 inches.
“The trends revealed by our analysis suggest that speed records will continue to be dominated by heavier and taller athletes,” said Duke University researcher Jordan Charles.
Using mathematical formulas, Charles also predicted running speeds during the Greek or Roman empires.
“In antiquity, body weights were roughly 70 percent less than they are today,” Charles said. “Using our theory, a 100-meter dash that is won in 13 seconds would have taken about 14 seconds back then.”
Olympic swimming juggernaut Michael Phelps is 6’4,” with a disproprtionate arm span of 6’7″ and size 14 feet. He weighs about 200 pounds.
Interesting, but I was really wondering about that 70 per cent claim; on this reading, your average Achilles type — assuming he was the ancient equivalent of a Phelps, more or less — would weigh only 60 pounds!!! Happily, the Guardian seems to have picked up on the difference between “70 percent less” and “70 percent of” (albeit in a correction).
- Runners, swimmers getting bigger, faster (Sun-Times)
- The quickest grow fastest (Boston Globe)
- The bigger they get, the faster they go – the rise of the ‘superhuman’ athletes (Guardian)
- The evolution of speed, size and shape in modern athletics (Journal of Experimental Biology — abstract)
rogueclassicism 