Olympic records are being broken at a record pace

Source

AT THE OLYMPIC GAMES in Tokyo on July 25th, a quartet of Australian swimmers set a new world record in the women’s 4 x 100 metres freestyle event. They swam the distance in three minutes, 29.69 seconds—an average speed of 1.9 metres a second—skimming 36 milliseconds off the old record set three years ago by a team containing three of the Tokyo four. A team of Chinese swimmers broke the world record for the 4 x 200 metres freestyle on July 29th. And a further seven Olympic records have been broken at the games so far.

The Economist Today

Hand-picked stories, in your inbox

A daily email with the best of our journalism

Swimming records have been tumbling for some time. In the previous five years new world bests have been set in 13 of the 17 women’s Olympic swimming events. Men have also been swimming faster: in the same period new world records have been set in five events.

Not every Olympic sport has seen such improvements in performance. Although track athletes have been breaking records too, their progress has been speedier in some disciplines than others (see chart). New world records tend to arrive in clusters, as technical innovations and pioneering individuals make their mark. The timing of those clusters, as well as the reasons behind them, may seem random, but they depend on the nature of each sport.

Swimmers have mostly benefited from steady progress in the construction of their swimsuits, even after full-body suits were banned in 2009. Improvements to clothing and equipment have helped break records in other sports, too. For example, the majority of world records in Olympic canoeing and rowing have been set in the past decade—aided by improvements in materials and boat design. The average age of records in the three track cycling events for men and women is just three years. And in archery, South Korean competitors have already set three new Olympic records in Tokyo, thanks to advances in bow and arrow construction supported by Hyundai, a carmaker.

Even track-and-field athletics, seen as the last bastion of pure human achievement, has been affected by technological progress. Records in long-distance running have taken a beating in the past few years—Nike’s Vaporfly trainers, and other similar footwear, boost racers’ running efficiency by about 4%. Both the men’s and women’s world records in the 5,000 and 10,000 metres events are less than a year old—with one record changing hands twice in two days. New shoes designed for sprint events—“super spikes”—give a similar edge. In early July they helped Karsten Warholm, a Norwegian hurdler, beat the 29-year-old world record for men over 400 metres, by just eight milliseconds.

Only a few athletics records remain untouched. The “field” events—involving throwing and jumping in the centre of the track—account for most of the oldest. The average world record in these 16 events is more than 23 years old, and only five have been improved since 1996. Doping was rampant and mostly uncontrolled between the 1970s and 1990s, in both the East and the West. Many of the records were set by athletes from East Germany and the Soviet Union, which ran state-sponsored doping programs. In 2017 the IAAF, the governing body of athletics, considered annulling every world record set before 2005 because it was so concerned about the legacy of doping, but decided to let them stand.

Yet not all of the stickiness of throwing and jumping records can be attributed to banned substances. The oldest Olympic record is Bob Beamon’s mighty long jump of 8.90 metres in Mexico City in 1968. That world record was bettered only in 1991, when Mike Powell leapt just five centimetres farther than Mr Beamon. Mr Powell’s mark still stands. Technology can be counted on to assist when it can, but not even the most cutting-edge footwear appears to offer much help to someone hurtling through the air.