End of world records ?


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Bad news for sportsmen and sportswomen! According to French researchers, the Olympic motto Citius, Fortius, Altius, will soon be a thing of the past

Bad news for sportsmen and sportswomen! According to French researchers, the Olympic motto Citius, Fortius, Altius – swifter, higher, stronger – will soon be a thing of the past … and they have figures to prove it! As they see it, the continued improvement in world records will soon hit the barrier of Man’s physiological limitations.

To reach this conclusion, Jean-François Toussaint and his team at IRMES (France’s Biomedical and Epidemiological Sport Research Institute) developed a statistical model that “dissected” no fewer than 3,263 world records. That is to say, all the records set since 1896 – the year of the first Olympic Games of the modern era – in 5 disciplines: athletics, swimming, cycling, speed skating and weight lifting.

According to their conclusions, “by 2027, it will no longer be possible to improve on half the world records in any significant way”. This means that as things stand, records have reached “99% of the limit estimated by the statistical model”.

To illustrate this, the researchers look at the example of athletics, and the men’s 100 metres. The best world performance in this event is currently 9.74 seconds. According to their calculations, the best achievable figure, given human physiological capabilities, is 9.67 seconds. “Therefore it can only be improved by a matter of thousandths of a second”, they state.
Toussaint admits, however that “the fact that certain sportspeople suspected or found guilty of doping hold records could alter the proposed model … Which would mean that the real boundaries of human physiology are in fact close to current records.

by Destination Santé

International  International news in general
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