The title of this post is a direct application of the Betteridge law of headlines. In case you are wondering, the "law" states that "any headline that ends in a question mark can be answered by the word no". As I will explain in what follows women's triple jump is definitely not stagnating.
But how did I come to ask the question in the first place? It started with C. Ibargüen's nomination as athlete of the year 2018. Ibargüen is the best triple jumper of the last decade. (Some may argue that Y. Rojas is the triple jumper of the next decade. While this may turn out to be true, I am a stickler for style and I cannot stand Rojas' style. What is Pedroso doing? He had a great style himself. How can he tolerate such a ugly style in his trainee?). Ibargüen has won everything: olympic titles, world, continental, you name it. The one thing missing is the world record. A look at the all-time best list puts Ibargüen at 5th place.
Foremost in the list is the world record holder, olympic and world champion I. Kravets. With 15.50 m, she established her record in 1995 and it still stands after a quarter century. Kravets was an accomplished long jumper (olympic and world-indoor silver medalist) with a personal best of 7.37 m. F. Mbango Etone was the olympic champion of 2004 and 2008. The latter victory with a PB of 15.39 m, came as a surprise since Mbango was absent from competition since 2005. She was a so-so long jumper with a PB of 6.55 m, although she holds a continental title in the discipline, along with the two titles in triple jump. (The latter was obtained in May 2008 with a 14.76 m jump. This and two competitions at 14.93 m and 14.95 m in July should have prepared us psychologically for her victorious leap in Beijing). T. Lebedeva appears at the third place with a 15.34 m record. She was an excellent long jumper with a PB of 7.33 m. She was olympic champion in long jump in 2004, obtaining a bronze medal in triple jump at the same games (I cannot think of anybody else coming even close to this accomplishment). She did even better at the 2007 World's with a gold and silver respectively (but she had won gold in triple jump in the 2001 and 2003 World Championships).
C. Devetzi appears at 4th place with her 15.32 m record, obtained at the 2004 Olympics qualifiers (had she repeated her jump in the final she would have been olympic champion). She was a good long jumper as well with a PB of 6.83 m. Devetzi is a very special case in the sense that she has never obtained a gold medal at a major competition (unless we count her 2005 victory at the World Athletic Final). She lost gold at the 2006 European's at the very last jump (Lebedeva won). The same scenario was repeated in the 2008 World Indoor's where Y. Savigne passed Devetzi at her sixth attempt. So while Devetzi is the best greek female triple jumper she is the only one, among the top four, never to have won gold.
O. Vasdeki (PBs 14.67 m and 6.60 m) won the 1998 World Cup and went on to win the European's of the same year as well. She obtained a bronze medal at the 1999 World's, in a competition won by compatriot P. Tsiamita (PBs 15.07 m and 6.93 m). More recently P. Papachristou (PBS 14.73 m and 6.60 m), after a long career with several bronze medals, won the 2018 European Championships.
So, Ibargüen appears at the 5th place of the all-time best lists (closely followed by the Cuban-Sudanese-British jumper Y. Aldama, who has a PB of 15.29 from 2003). Ibargüen jumped 15.31 in 2014, O. Rypakova 15.25 m in 2010 and going still further back we have Mbango's record from 2008 and Y. Savigne's 15.28 from 2007. No much progress has been registered at the top, with the world record standing for more than 23 years. So, one can justifiably wonder whether the women's triple jump is stagnating. Now if one compares with the situation in men's triple jump a different picture is emerging. While the world record, 18.29 m by J. Edwards, goes back to 1995 and the same World Championships as the women's one, three out of the next four top jumpers have made their best marks recently: C. Taylor 18.21 m in 2015, P.P. Pichardo 18.08 m in 2015 (and 17.95 in 2018r), T. Tamgho 18.04 in 2013 and only L. Harrison's 18.09 m dates back to the 1996 Olympics. Does this mean that the men's triple jump is progressing faster than the women's discipline?
In a publication, co-authored with Y. Charon, which appeared in New Studies in Athletics, (Comparing the best athletic performances of the two sexes, B. Grammaticos, Y. Charon, New Stud. Athl. 29:4, 2014, p. 37-48), we argued that one cannot appraise the progress of a discipline by looking at the evolution of the world record and/or the performances of a handful of top performers. The behaviour of the performances of, say, the 50th, 100th or 500th performer can be quite different from that of the world record. The women's triple jump is a case in point. In the graphic below I show the evolution of the 50th all-time performer in triple jump. While the world record is the same since 1995, the discipline is progressing at depth.
Just for comparison I display graphically the same information for the men's discipline. The scale of the vertical axis is properly adjusted so as to be directly comparable to that of the women's graphic. What we observe in the men's case is a very small progression, compatible with the fact that the discipline exists for more than a century while the women's one was introduced in the late 80s.
Does a near-zero progression of the record of the 50th performer necessarily mean that a discipline is stagnating? I don't think so. The progress of a discipline cannot be captured at the level of the 50th performer alone. One needs data on the 500th or 1000th performer in order to appraise the in-depth progression. Unfortunately such data are rarely available and one has to make do with statistics that do not extend beyond the 50th performer. In the case of women's triple jump, given the short life-span on the discipline (a mere 30 year), even the evolution of the 50th performer's record was enough in order to show the constant progression. Looking closely at the graphic above one can see signals of saturation, especially over the past 5-10 years. Far from indicating stagnation this behaviour shows that the women's triple jump is reaching maturation, becoming a well-established discipline, on-par with the men's one.
Flying Ibargüen
Kravets exiting the pit after her world record jump
Lebedeva, Mbango and Devetzi at the 2008 Olympics
Vasdeki and Tsiamita at the 1999 World Championships
O. Vasdeki (PBs 14.67 m and 6.60 m) won the 1998 World Cup and went on to win the European's of the same year as well. She obtained a bronze medal at the 1999 World's, in a competition won by compatriot P. Tsiamita (PBs 15.07 m and 6.93 m). More recently P. Papachristou (PBS 14.73 m and 6.60 m), after a long career with several bronze medals, won the 2018 European Championships.
Papachristou at the 2018 European Championships
So, Ibargüen appears at the 5th place of the all-time best lists (closely followed by the Cuban-Sudanese-British jumper Y. Aldama, who has a PB of 15.29 from 2003). Ibargüen jumped 15.31 in 2014, O. Rypakova 15.25 m in 2010 and going still further back we have Mbango's record from 2008 and Y. Savigne's 15.28 from 2007. No much progress has been registered at the top, with the world record standing for more than 23 years. So, one can justifiably wonder whether the women's triple jump is stagnating. Now if one compares with the situation in men's triple jump a different picture is emerging. While the world record, 18.29 m by J. Edwards, goes back to 1995 and the same World Championships as the women's one, three out of the next four top jumpers have made their best marks recently: C. Taylor 18.21 m in 2015, P.P. Pichardo 18.08 m in 2015 (and 17.95 in 2018r), T. Tamgho 18.04 in 2013 and only L. Harrison's 18.09 m dates back to the 1996 Olympics. Does this mean that the men's triple jump is progressing faster than the women's discipline?
In a publication, co-authored with Y. Charon, which appeared in New Studies in Athletics, (Comparing the best athletic performances of the two sexes, B. Grammaticos, Y. Charon, New Stud. Athl. 29:4, 2014, p. 37-48), we argued that one cannot appraise the progress of a discipline by looking at the evolution of the world record and/or the performances of a handful of top performers. The behaviour of the performances of, say, the 50th, 100th or 500th performer can be quite different from that of the world record. The women's triple jump is a case in point. In the graphic below I show the evolution of the 50th all-time performer in triple jump. While the world record is the same since 1995, the discipline is progressing at depth.
Evolution of the performance of 50th female triple jumper
Just for comparison I display graphically the same information for the men's discipline. The scale of the vertical axis is properly adjusted so as to be directly comparable to that of the women's graphic. What we observe in the men's case is a very small progression, compatible with the fact that the discipline exists for more than a century while the women's one was introduced in the late 80s.
Evolution of the performance of 50th male triple jumper
Does a near-zero progression of the record of the 50th performer necessarily mean that a discipline is stagnating? I don't think so. The progress of a discipline cannot be captured at the level of the 50th performer alone. One needs data on the 500th or 1000th performer in order to appraise the in-depth progression. Unfortunately such data are rarely available and one has to make do with statistics that do not extend beyond the 50th performer. In the case of women's triple jump, given the short life-span on the discipline (a mere 30 year), even the evolution of the 50th performer's record was enough in order to show the constant progression. Looking closely at the graphic above one can see signals of saturation, especially over the past 5-10 years. Far from indicating stagnation this behaviour shows that the women's triple jump is reaching maturation, becoming a well-established discipline, on-par with the men's one.
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