Posted: December 16, 2005

Science of Sport: Unbeatable World Records

Research from two of the EIS’s leading experts shows that World records will be harder and harder to beat in the future. Studies into both rowing and athletics, showed that we are nearing our natural genetic limit to performance and that winning margins will become even closer.

Kelly Holmes won her 1500m gold medal in Athens with the smallest of winning margins - 0.22 seconds - yet was over 7 seconds off the world record, while in men’s coxless fours, Matthew Pinsent and his crew’s gold medal was won by a memorable 0.08 seconds gap, but they were over 25 seconds off the World record.

Lead Biomechanist, Dr Valery Kleshnev, presented his research on the “Gold medal times” to World Rowing Forum recently held in Istanbul, Turkey. While EIS Director of Science and Research, Professor Greg Whyte published a paper in the leading sports science journal, Medicine and Science in Sport and Exercise.

EIS Director of Science and Research, Professor Greg Whyte, working alongside Professor Alan Nevill, applied a new mathematical model to world-record times run over the past century for distances from 800 metres to the marathon. Statistical and biological evidence indicated that race times are now peaking.

“Many of the established men's and women's middle and long-distance running records are already nearing their limits," says Prof. Greg Whyte. "The women's 1,500-metre record appears to have reached the limit of human performance and is unlikely to be surpassed unless human beings have fundamental changes to their genetic structure."

Lead Biomechanist, Dr Valery Kleshnev predicted rowing boat speed will continue to improve over time, but this rate will be much smaller than previously seen. Kleshnev also believes that predicting future winning times would be difficult: “This is due to many factors, including technological developments, wind speed and water temperature. However we could still find some new methods of training or rowing technique which could mean the speed of boats increases faster than we expect.”

Both sets of research showed a fluctuation in results over the past 100 years, and a plateaux coming into the 21st Century. Reasons given for the potential fluctuations were the two World Wars, advances in equipment and training aiding development and possibly stricter doping controls in world sport.

© 2005 English Institute of Sport - Posted with Permission.