I have already written about Dale Harder and his "Sports comparisons: you can compare apples to oranges" book. It lays the foundation for a universal scoring system, one which would allow comparisons between athletes practicing any sport. Dale is not known only for his "apples to oranges" work. He is also (among others) publishing a newsletter on "Speed and Strength". This year I subscribed to the newsletter and in the January 2020 edition I stumbled upon a very interesting list or records: athletics records by bodyweight.
We all know the 100 m record (and the weight of U. Bolt at the time of the record) and we could easily remember J. Regis and his 98 kg blasting down the track for a 10.15 s 100 m (and a 19.87 s 200 m). But the list goes on and becomes more and more interesting. One finds as best performers over 100 m at 125 and 130 kg none other than the ex-world record holders of discus throw and shot put respectively, Y. Dumchev, with 11.24 s, and U. Beyer, with 11.44 s. The heaviest man with a 12.54 s record is M. Hoebert with 145 kg. And from there things become crazy since several people have established records while carrying another person on their shoulders. We have thus a record of 18.24 s over 100 m with 244 kg and even one at 48.24 s with 357 kg.
The longest distance where a record is established by somebody carrying a person on his shoulders is the mile, with 8:30 for 158 kg. The heaviest person to complete a marathon did so in 5 hours and 14:35 while weighing 138 kg.
D. Harder's list goes on to present also the records for jumps, from lighter to heavier, and also those of throws, from heavier to lighter. I may one day return to analyse those lists but I must say that the use of imperial measures (pounds and feet) is a real torment. I can understand that the US cannot spend the humongous amount of money needed for the conversion. But why on earth people who deal with sport cannot decide to use the metric system since it is the only one used in international competitions? (I remember reading that one reason J. Thomas lost the high jump gold medal in the Rome, 1960, Olympics, was that he did not know what height he was attempting and had each time to ask his coach. I also remember B. Beamon in Mexico realising what he had done only after R. Boston translated his jump into feet).
I show below a plot of the velocity as a function of the athletes mass. It is clear that over a wide range of masses the dependence is linear.
Similar results are obtained for longer distances up to, and including the marathon. Since the dependence is roughly linear one can perform a straight-line fit and extract the parameters. Once this is done it is easy to answer the question: what would be the maximum mass of an athlete able to complete a certain distance. It is clear that a 150 kg weightlifter can carry a 250 kg weight on his shoulders over a short distance but how about completing a 100 m ? A mile ? A Marathon? Extrapolating the straight lines to zero velocity I found the following:
For short distances, 100 and 200 m, one can complete them even with a great weight. My extrapolations give a limiting weight of over 400 kg for 100 m and around 350 kg for the 200 m. From there the limiting weight diminishes fast and is around 230 kg from 400 m to the mile. For longer distances and up to the Marathon the limiting weight does not exceed 200 kg. This is an amazing result. If the extrapolation is to be taken seriously it would mean that an overweight man, say at around 180 kg could in theory complete a marathon (walking rather than running, but still). This sounds a little bit crazy but on the other hand I would never have believed that a 140 kg man could finish a marathon, until I saw D. Harder's compilation.
The sculptural J. Regis
We all know the 100 m record (and the weight of U. Bolt at the time of the record) and we could easily remember J. Regis and his 98 kg blasting down the track for a 10.15 s 100 m (and a 19.87 s 200 m). But the list goes on and becomes more and more interesting. One finds as best performers over 100 m at 125 and 130 kg none other than the ex-world record holders of discus throw and shot put respectively, Y. Dumchev, with 11.24 s, and U. Beyer, with 11.44 s. The heaviest man with a 12.54 s record is M. Hoebert with 145 kg. And from there things become crazy since several people have established records while carrying another person on their shoulders. We have thus a record of 18.24 s over 100 m with 244 kg and even one at 48.24 s with 357 kg.
Y. Dumchev (71.86 m WR) confided, years ago, to P.J. Vazel
that he once threw 80 m at practice with a huge wind!
The longest distance where a record is established by somebody carrying a person on his shoulders is the mile, with 8:30 for 158 kg. The heaviest person to complete a marathon did so in 5 hours and 14:35 while weighing 138 kg.
D. Harder's list goes on to present also the records for jumps, from lighter to heavier, and also those of throws, from heavier to lighter. I may one day return to analyse those lists but I must say that the use of imperial measures (pounds and feet) is a real torment. I can understand that the US cannot spend the humongous amount of money needed for the conversion. But why on earth people who deal with sport cannot decide to use the metric system since it is the only one used in international competitions? (I remember reading that one reason J. Thomas lost the high jump gold medal in the Rome, 1960, Olympics, was that he did not know what height he was attempting and had each time to ask his coach. I also remember B. Beamon in Mexico realising what he had done only after R. Boston translated his jump into feet).
I show below a plot of the velocity as a function of the athletes mass. It is clear that over a wide range of masses the dependence is linear.
Similar results are obtained for longer distances up to, and including the marathon. Since the dependence is roughly linear one can perform a straight-line fit and extract the parameters. Once this is done it is easy to answer the question: what would be the maximum mass of an athlete able to complete a certain distance. It is clear that a 150 kg weightlifter can carry a 250 kg weight on his shoulders over a short distance but how about completing a 100 m ? A mile ? A Marathon? Extrapolating the straight lines to zero velocity I found the following:
For short distances, 100 and 200 m, one can complete them even with a great weight. My extrapolations give a limiting weight of over 400 kg for 100 m and around 350 kg for the 200 m. From there the limiting weight diminishes fast and is around 230 kg from 400 m to the mile. For longer distances and up to the Marathon the limiting weight does not exceed 200 kg. This is an amazing result. If the extrapolation is to be taken seriously it would mean that an overweight man, say at around 180 kg could in theory complete a marathon (walking rather than running, but still). This sounds a little bit crazy but on the other hand I would never have believed that a 140 kg man could finish a marathon, until I saw D. Harder's compilation.
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