The motto of the Olympics — “Faster, Higher, Stronger” — paints a picture of relentless athletic record-breaking, but some scientists say sporting records are starting to flatline and one day they will become near impossible to beat without drugs, gene splicing or futuristic technology.
The men’s long jump world record was set in 1991, the men’s pole vault record remains unbroken since 1994 and swimming’s achievements have actually reversed since the drag-reducing bodysuit was banned in 2010.
“In all sports, what you see is a leveling off,” said Steve Haake, director of Sheffield Hallam University’s centre for sports engineering research.
Records continue to be broken in many sports, but the margins are getting smaller and smaller, he said.
Geoffroy Berthelot with the INSEP sports institute in Paris looked at a history of Olympic records since the modern Games began in 1896.
He calculates that athletes have reached 99 percent of what is possible within the limits of natural human physiology. By 2027, half of all 147 sporting events studied will have reached their estimated limits and will not be improved upon by more than 0.05 percent after that, according to Berthelot’s mathematical estimate.
“Sports performances are reaching a physiological plateau,” he said.
Reza Noubary of Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania projects that the men’s 100m sprint, seen as the benchmark measure of human acceleration and speed, can only have a top time of 9.4 seconds.
“Data suggests that human speed increases are decelerating and will eventually stop completely,” Noubary said.
However, he cautioned that the prediction is based only on mathematics. It does not take into account the emergence of exceptional runners, such as Jamaica’s Usain Bolt, who currently holds the record with 9.58 seconds.
“It’s impossible for anybody to predict the magnitude of the freakiness of athletic talent,” Noubary said. “Bolt, it turns out, is a perfect example, as he combines the mechanical advantages of taller men’s bodies with the fast-twitch [muscle] fibres of smaller men.”
Noubary also calculated that the long jump record of 8.95m held by Mike Powell of the US for the past 21 years is likely to be broken only by about 2040.
“Yes, we can predict limits,” added Haake, though these would “probably not” be reached within five or 10 years.
“In 50 years we will be very, very close,” he said.
Sometimes what makes the difference is not genes, but technology, like the full-body swimsuits that saw an unprecedented 25 records broken in 2008 and 47 in 2009, before they were banned.
Mark Denny, a mathematician at Stanford University, California, said in a 2008 report that race speeds in greyhounds and thoroughbreds had not increased in 40 to 60 years, despite the availability of top breeding animals and performance-boosting drugs.
There are also those who believe that records will always continue to be broken, if only by the thinnest slivers of hundredths of a second.
“Imagine if it were ever decided to measure in the thousandths,” said Ian Ritchie of Brock University’s department of human kinetics in Canada, adding that predictions of limits are nothing new.
Before Britain’s Roger Bannister ran the mile (1.6km) in under four minutes in 1954, “many assumed that it was a theoretical impossibility” — some apparently predicted a human’s lungs would simply burst. The current record is 3 minutes, 43.13 seconds.
If there is an absolute limit to the men’s 100m sprint, many expect it to lie years away, and observers predict an exciting Olympics starting on July 27.
“The top 25 average coming into 2012 is already consistently below 10 seconds, so expect fast performances and extreme rivalry,” Haake said just weeks after Bolt was beaten in a 100m trial by Yohan Blake.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB