Athletics is back on track

No, the title is not some cheesy pun. Athletics meetings are back and, although the conditions are far from optimal, the athletes have the occasion to compete and, in some cases, excel.

The Monaco meeting, although a pale copy of the famous Herculis meetings, was a welcome change from the "impossible" and "inspiration" games. And icing on the cake were the World and Area records, that nobody could have predicted.

I have been following J. Cheptegei for quite a few years now. He is to me eyes the best 5000 and 10000 m runner today. In Monaco he proved his supremacy by breaking Bekele's record, which had stood for more than fifteen years. What was really impressive was the perfect regularity of Cheptegei running at 60 second 400 m laps for most of the race. Next stop the 10000 m record. (In fact I would like to see Farah coming back to the track only to be humiliated by Cheptegei). 

I enjoyed greatly the 1500 m. Cheruiyot was the winner but this time things were not as easy as in the World's last year. Jakob Ingebrigtsen followed him closely over the final stretch and although he had to concede the victory he improved the European record. And Jakob has not yet celebrated his 20th anniversary. The world record of El Guerrouj looks now more vulnerable than ever. 

A second Area Record was that of F. Kipyegon over 1000 m, a distance, admittedly, not very frequently run. 

K. Warholm was impressive as always. He has spent the winter period perfecting his 13-step technique and it shows: there are no more hesitations over the last hurdles. 

The photo is from the Stockholm (46.87) meeting (see PS)

He is unfortunately running without competition. I cannot imagine what a race with all the top low-hurdlers (Warholm, Benjamin, Samba, McMaster) present would give. 

One of the high points of the meeting was the athletes presentation before the 200 m where N. Lyles raised a black gloved hand. 

The symbolic gesture is a direct heritage of the T. Smith-J. Carlos iconic protest during the 1968, Mexico, Olympics. Hammer thrower G. Berry repeated the gesture (although without glove) on the podium of the 2019 Panamericans and got reprimanded with a 12 month probation. The tone of the reprimand letter signed by S. Hirshland, the CEO of the USOC, was a clear message that athletes who would protest in the same way in the future could face a different (harsher) reaction. Still I seriously doubt that Lyles, who is one of the best US athletes today, will face any kind of punishment.

G. Berry at the podium of the 2019 Panamericans

By the way, the World Athletics site announced the imminent release of the movie "The Stand: How one gesture shook the World" centred around Smith's and Carlos' Mexico protest.

The Herculis meeting, touted by some exaggerating journalists as a world championship in the absence of  the real competition, was well-stocked in track events and incredibly poor in field ones. There were just three jumps and no (!) throws. Perhaps there is an epidemic-dictated reason for this but I have trouble imagining one. Duplantis looks like he is getting better accustomed to his stiffer pole. This time he managed 6 m but his jumps were not always completely under control. Once he gets really the knack of the pole, sky is the limit. Y. Levchenko and Y. Mahuchikh (both world vice-champions) offered us a great high jump contest culminating at 1.98 m. Mahuchikh won that one but Levchenko riposted two days later in Bydgoszcz prevailing with a 2 m clearance. 

There were also some disappointments in Monaco. M.-J. TaLou, one of my favourite sprinters could not finish better than 4th in the 100 m with a mediocre 11.39. S. Hassan dropped out of the 5000 m. Is this a sign that the post-Salazar period will not be an impressive one? 

The two ugandan last year's revelations H. Nakaayi and W. Nanyondo (first and fourth in the 800 m of last year's world championships) were among the "also ran" in the women's 1000 m. G. Holloway could not even make the podium in the 110 m hurdles giving the impression of running out of steam at around the 7-8th hurdle. L. Girma, last year's world vice-champion in the 3000 m steeplechase, was never among the contenders of the race, and even managed to fall in the river jump.  

I left Y. Rojas for last. She won the women's triple jump, all right. But she was really, really disappointing. Her physical qualities are great but I find her style abysmal. In Monaco where she was not as fast as usual she could only manage a less-than-mediocre 14.27 m. This is the recurrent situation with athletes who rely essentially on their speed and whose technique is somehow lacking. My triple jump consolation was G. Petrova. She's an athlete I have been following for quite some time now, and she is back having recovered from her injuries. 

We could have had another world record in Monaco had C. Kipruto been able to participate in the 3000 m steeplechase. He had been hinting at this before the meeting. Unfortunately he was tested positive for the virus before Monaco and had to be put in quarantine. Let's hope this is a false positive and he can be back for what is left of the season. 

PS. I was over-optimistic when I wrote about Warholm having perfected his 13-step technique. He is only a tad shorter than E. Moses, 1.87 to 1.88, (and a good 6 cm shorter than K. Young) but the 13-step technique is quite delicate. So in the Stockholm Diamond League, while on a world record trajectory, Warholm hit the last hurdle, stumbled and had to content himself with "just" a european record. But still, his 46.87 is the second best performance ever and a solid promise for a WR to come. (And, just to be fair, K. Young also hit and knocked down the last hurdle on his way to the world record).

Decathlon variants revisited

Those who follow my blog know that I am always fascinated by the combined events (and their scoring). Articles about the decathlon appear regularly in these pages and as you have certainly noticed I am a fervent supporter of the decathlon for women. 

This post had two distinct motivations. The first stemmed from a crazy idea of mine (and we'll come to the second later in this post). As you may have noticed I am not particulary fond of the eicosathlon: it is too much skewed towards running. In my post on decathlon variants I did propose a shorter version thereof, with just 15 events. 

Pentathletes training in the discus

But then I got thinking. How about an alternate decathlon, which would keep the ratio of track to field events to the initial 2/3 one and would include events not present in the standard decathlon? It turns out that since the only field events not present in the decathlon are triple jump and hammer throw one needs to keep four of the six decathlon field events. Also I was reluctant to consider now-extinct events like standing jumps or left-right hand throws. Also, if hammer is to be present, the 25 kg weight throw should not be considered. Thus the triple jump and hammer throw would be accompanied by the two vertical jumps and the two pentathlon throws.

Following this logic one needs four track events in order to complete the alternate decathlon. Choosing the flat runs is easy: 200 m and 800 m are the obvious candidates. And for the hurdle race the 400 m is the natural choice. As a matter of fact I hesitated a bit thinking about a possible inclusion of the 200 m hurdles. Although it is not run in a major competition since the 1904 Olympics it is an interesting race in particular because of the (very) low hurdles. But then I decided, in view of what comes next, that its inclusion would lead to too many obstacle races. For the final track event I opted for a steeplechase race. Obliging the athletes to run over 3000 m one at the end of the decathlon would be inconsiderate, so I opted for the shorter version of the 2000 m. In fact if a 1000 m steeplechase existed I would not hesitate to include that in the alternate decathlon. 

The organisation would follow the current two-day one with the "new" events concentrated on the first day while the second day would be identical to the current one as far as the field events are concerned. Here is the result

1st day

200 m, triple jump, hammer throw, high jump, 800 m

2nd day

400 m HD, discus throw, pole vault, javelin throw, 2000 m ST

And of course an alternate heptathlon can be proposed along the same lines

1st day

100 m, triple jump, hammer throw, 400 m HD

2nd day

pole vault, discus throw, 1500 m

In my post on athletic triathlons, which are on the path of becoming a regular event of major meetings, I wrote about the possibility of tetrathlons consisting of 200 m, long jump, shot put and 1000 m. The advantage of such events is that they are suitable for both indoors and outdoors and are the same for men and women. Moreover they could be contested in just one hour.

This brings me to the second motivation for this post. A few weeks ago D. Distelberger, a 8000+ decathlete, announced his intention to attempt a 10 minute decathlon. Yes, that's not a misprint, 10 minutes. Of course, as in the 30 min and 1 hr decathlon, 10 minutes means that the 1500 m should start not later than 10 minutes after the start of the 100 m.   Distelberger was aiming at a 5800 and perhaps 6000 points performance. Unfortunately while preparing for the event he injured himself and had to postpone the attempt. 

A 10 min decathlon asks for a special setup of the field, ferrying the athlete around from one point to the next one by car (I have golf carts in mind) while he changes shoes. While I look forward to the "fastest decathlon of all time" I am aware of the danger involved. Suppose one decides to set up a record of the fastest decathlon (even with the time for the 1500 m included). If we believe that Distelberger can reach the start of the 1500 m in 10 minutes then a decathlon could be completed in roughly 15 minutes. But what would prevent somebody to try to beat the 15 min barrier by jogging through the 100 and 400 m (the high hurdles would definitely require some effort, though), making token jumps in particular in the vertical ones, reaching the 1500 m without having exerted himself and then go all out so as to run a very fast 1500 m. That would be a farcical "fast decathlon" one that no serious decathlete would ever attempt. So, a super-fast decathlon should always come with a minimum point requirement. 

I. Dadic competing in the 1 hour heptathlon

Distelberger was planning for 5800 to 6000 points, slightly over 70 % of his 8175 personal best. Now we know that Zmelik's one-hour record stands at 90 % of his PB and Beach's 30 minute record is slightly above 80 % of his best. Recenly I. Dadic competed a one hour heptathlon (more comfortable than the usual 45 minutes one) and with 6325 she came within 96 % of her PB of 6552 points. Given these performances Distelberger's aim at a total of 70 % of his best does not look irrealistic. In fact I would settle even for a 5000 10 min decathlon. (And one would expect the same, or slightly higher, number of points for a 10 min women's heptathlon).  

I keep my fingers crossed and hope that Distelberger (or somebody else) manages to make the attempt of a super-fast decathlon.

The Olympic pentathlon of 1912 (and that of 1924)

When the first modern Olympics were organised in Athens in 1896, the organisers proposed to include a pentathlon identical to the one held during the ancient Olympics. De Coubertin vetoed it in order to support the idea of the Marathon which was proposed by his friend Michel Bréal. (And then, when it came to the 1908 London Olympics, de Coubertin accepted to pervert the race, assenting to the proposal of the organisers to add two more kilometres to the initial 40 km Marathon-Athens distance, so as to have the race start in front of the Windsor Palace). 

I already wrote about the 1906 Olympic pentathlon. Ignoring the rules of the ancient pentathlon the organisers staged a competition where it was possible to cheat (and cheating did indeed take place). Also, to be frank, although the ancient pentathlon was a perfect event for the ancient times, it is ill suited for modern athletics: wrestling is a totally different discipline and mixing two different skills reminds one of the other de Coubertin monstrosity, the "modern" pentathlon. 

There were no combined events in 1908. Then came the 1912 Games in Sweden. The organisers decided to include not one but two combined events, a pentathlon and a decathlon. The latter was an evolution of the all-around event done properly, and not reminding the festival-like character of the all-round. (I may be unfair to the all around event. Most probably my enmity comes from the fact that A. Brundage was an all-arounder, who moreover, prided himself to be a heel-and-toe, i.e. race-walk, specialist). Anyhow, the Swedes chose properly the decathlon events and established tables for the scoring of the performances.  When it came to the pentathlon though they made one good and one bad decision. The good one was to replace wrestling by a 1500 m race. Thus the pentathlon became a pure athletics event. The bad decision was to use the same system used in Athens, in 1906, for the classification, namely points attributed according to the rank. While in 1912 the system did not result in an unfair classification, that was not the case for 1924 as we shall see below.

The 1912 were marked by the presence of "the greatest athlete in the world" according to the praise by king Gustav V of Sweden during the award ceremony (although the story may be apocryphal), Jim Thorpe. Even today, when it is asked who is the best decathlete the name of Thorpe immediately pops to mind.  

What he did in Stockholm was unprecedented. In the pentathlon he won four out of the five events (long jump, 200 m, discus throw, 1500 m) and placed third in the javelin (he had not thrown a javelin until two months before the Games). Had an ancient pentathlon been organised he would have won it after the first four events in the rare distinction of an "akoniti" win (i.e. without having to go into wrestling). 

H. Wieslander, who was considered the main opponent of Thorpe, had a catastrophic discus performance and lost all hopes for a medal (but he would have been 4th had the classification been based on table points). F. Bie won the silver medal. The classification lists A. Brundage as 6th. Brundage himself has been bragging all life long that he finished 6th at the pentathlon. Nothing is further from the truth.  Brundage dropped out after the fourth event: although he shared the third place with Lukeman at this point, he knew he had no hope for a medal. Despite his no-show the organisers gave him 7 points, corresponding to the last place, in total disrespect (or was it pure ignorance?) of the rules. In fact Brundage would repeat this "courageous" decision in the decathlon where he dropped out after the 8th event.

Speaking about the decathlon, there also Thorpe was masterful. He won four out of the 10 events, being among the first four in every event. His winning margin over Wieslander was of 700 points and his 8412 points a new world record (that's 6649 points with the current table, a quite respectable performance).

If you are interested in athletics (if not, one can wonder why you are reading the blog) you most probably know the sad story of J. Thorpe being stripped of his gold medals. A few months after the Olympics he was accused of professionalism and at that time the amateurism rules were mindlessly strict. His amateur status was withdrawn and the IOC decided to annul his Stockholm results. He had to return his olympic medals. (Bie and Wieslander, being gentlemen, refused the gold medals. In fact Wieslander's medal was donated to the museum of the Swedish School of Sport from where it was stolen and never recovered). In this case the IOC acted in blatant violation of their own rules, which stipulate that "protests had to be made within 30 days from the closing ceremonies of the games". Thorpe's claims fell on deaf ears (in particular those of the almighty A. Brundage) and he was reinstated only posthumously, in 1983. 

The pentathlon event survived during two more Olympics, those of Antwerp in 1920 and of Paris in 1924. The same system of classification based on places was applied to both competitions. R. Legendre was the main victim of this stupid system. In 1920 he finished in the third place together with H. Lahtinen but the rules stipulated that the ex-aequo should be lifted based on the table points. So, Legendre ended up being fourth, Lahtinen winning the bronze medal. In fact Legendre paid the price of a catastrophic long jump where he could finish not better than 5th. He also finished 5th in the 1500 m for a mere 0.2 s where a 4th place would have given him the bronze medal. He obtained a medal of that colour in 1924 but that was as anticlimactic as it can be.  

Legendre was a good long jumper but he did not manage to qualify in the US trials. So he could only participate in the pentathlon. And there he did something unique: he broke the world record in long jump while competing in the pentathlon. Had the scoring table been used for the pentathlon classification Legendre would have won the event with more than a 100 points over Lehtonen. With the antiquated place system he got just one point less than the second contestant (who was at more than 80 cm behind him). In the end he had to console himself with taking just a bronze medal home.

That was the last time the pentathlon was part of the Track and Field Olympic competition.   I do not regret its absence. (Now if only the "modern" pentathlon could also disappear from the olympic program).

On the Rise & Fall of athletic performances

Everybody knows intuitively how athletic performances evolve with age. They start by improving steadily during the first two decades of life then taper off and start gradually decreasing with advancing age. What is astonishing is that, barring injuries and/or illness, the evolution is particularly smooth.  

Below I give the evolution of best performances with age for high jump. Both branches follow roughly straight lines and the ratio of the slopes is around 5: as I have already explained young athletes progress five time faster than old athletes slow down.

My friend D. Harder, the author of the excellent "Sports comparisons: you can compare apples to oranges" monograph, has computed age indices for the various athletics' disciplines. You can see below his results for high jump. Quite expectedly they are following the world record evolution i.e. dividing the record by the index should give a performance more or less constant throughout the various ages of life.

Of course, the natural question is whether these findings are specific to athletics. So I decided to try the same approach for something quite different, namely swimming. Before presenting the results, some background is in order. What is the physical quantity one must use in order to characterise performances? As I have explained in my publication "The physical basis of scoring the athletic performance" which appeared in New Studies in Athletics 22  (2007) page 47, the best candidate is the amount of energy that can be converted into work, necessary in order to produce the performance. For jumps and throws the result, be it length or height, is directly related to the kinetic energy of the athlete. For races, the energetic cost is a linear function of the velocity (with the exception of very short races, where a quadratic term does play a role). So it makes sense for athletics to discuss the performances in terms of the velocity for track events and in terms of the distance (horizontal or vertical) for the field ones. When it comes to swimming, things are more complicated. The energetic cost is definitely not a linear function of velocity. However it is neither a cubic function of velocity, as a naïve application of hydrodynamics would suggest. Thanks to the pioneering work of di Prampero we know now the energetic cost of swimming is a smaller power of the velocity. This can be explained by the fact that the swimmer is not a rigid body but optimises his shape while swimming. In the graphic below I opted for a power of 2.6 (but the results would not have been substantially different had I used a cubic power). The graphic is based on the US age records (which are the only ones I could easily find). 

Again, just as in athletics, the two branches are essentially linear and the ratio of the slopes again around 5. This is a most interesting result. It shows that the curve of rise and fall of the athletic performances with age is universal. 

Whatever the discipline, whatever the sport, one expects that the evolution of performances  will statistically follow the "rise & fall" curve above. Notice that the curve passes through 0 at an age of zero and again at around 125 years. As I explained in a previous post of mine this is the theoretical maximal life span, i.e. an age that no human can expect to exceed. 

Of course the universality of the rise & fall curve must be understood as an abstraction. When we talk about a specific individual one expects deviations form the curve (even under optimal conditions health-wise). Thus the performances of a given population are expected to vary within bounds which will roughly follow the universal curve. This corresponds to the shaded part delimited by the two curves as shown in the diagram below.

And then there is another particularity, that of the 'late bloomers'. Not all individuals age at the same speed. So it may happen that some athletes, who are not distinguished when young, start excelling at a later age. This is illustrated by the red line in the diagram above. Unfortunately, just as late bloomers exist, so do "early witherers", people who are among the top tier when young but who regress faster than the average person. But, whatever the scenario, one expects the evolution of the performances of any individual to be governed by the universal curve: one can never stray very far from it either in the positive or in the negative sense. The only thing that can disrupt this regularity are health problems and/or accidents. (Unfortunately, both are quite common).