By Robbie Butler
Since 1980 the world record in both the men's 100 metre sprint and marathon have been legitimately broken 14 times. The list of these record breaks is provided in the two tables below. The first provides information on the marathon while the second considers the 100 metre event.
Since 1980 the world record in both the men's 100 metre sprint and marathon have been legitimately broken 14 times. The list of these record breaks is provided in the two tables below. The first provides information on the marathon while the second considers the 100 metre event.
The question I pose is that surely there is a lower limit to what these records can go to? By definition there must be. What is that limit? It's possible in the not too distant future (10 - 15 yrs) that the marathon will be run in under 2 hours. Where to next? 1 hour 55? I hour 50? Surely not 1 hour 45? At what point will the capacity of the human being give way and prevent records from going any lower? Could 100 metres ever be run in under 9 seconds? What about under 8? Usain Bolt has certainly taken a giant step in this direction. The Jamaican took a massive 1.14% of his old world record, when he ran 9.58 seconds in Berlin in August 2009. Over the course of the past 30 years this is by far the biggest percentage change in a world record for either event. While 2015 is unlikely to see the 2 hour marathon run, I'm not so sure the record will still stand that high by 2025.
For more reading on this, check out Chapter 10 of Sportseconomic$. The chapter offers possible future Olympic mens's 100 metre times. Stanford University predict an optimum time of 9.48 seconds. Usain Bolt is more optimistic and reckons he can do it in 9.40 seconds before he retires.
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