Examining the Psychology of Olympic Athletes

Olympic records in endurance events will continue to fall as the physiological limits of athletes still has not been reached.

Published August 1, 2000

By Jill Stolarik

As the 2000 Olympic Games prepare to open in Sydney, sports fans around the world will continue to see new records being set-especially in endurance events such as swimming, cycling and long-distance running-predicts a scientist studying the physiological limits of athletic performance.

Writing in the September/October issue of The Sciences, University of Cambridge biochemist Guy C. Brown reports that world records in many events have not begun to taper off and, in fact, they seem to show steady improvement with each passing decade.

“If there is a physiological maximum to the running speed of a human being, one would expect that as athletes approached that limit, improvements would become both rarer and smaller,” Brown says. “Remarkably, neither of those trends has shown up, with world-record running times having declined almost linearly in the past hundred years.”

Rates of Improvement

Brown notes, for example, that the men’s record for the 1,500-meter run decreased from 4:06.2 in 1900 to 3:26.0 in 1998, at roughly ten-second intervals every quarter century. He also points out that although women have generally been unable to match men’s records, their world marks are improving faster than the men’s are.

“If the rates of improvement continue, women will outrun men in most events by the year 2035, and much sooner in endurance events such as the marathon,” Brown says. According to projections made by The Sciences of world-record times for selected events, women will surpass the men’s record in the 10,000-meter run by the year 2020.

In his article, Brown looks closely at the chain of events that begins with the intake of oxygen by the lungs and ends with the consumption of energy by the contracting muscles. He also takes a peek at the future, when advanced surgeries, implants and genetic engineering may play a role in athletic performance.

Also read: At Any Cost: Cheating, Integrity, and the Olympics