When elite athletes compete for top honors at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris, or any other, at least a few world records will undoubtedly be broken. But some of the fastest Olympic events — 100 meter run and 50 meter freestyle swim — haven't produced a record in over a decade. Although records are made to be broken, the question of how much faster a person can move on land or sea remains an open question. Every year everyone, from amateur athletes to world-famous stars, tries to be “faster, higher, stronger,” but by how much. Are they good at it and where is the limit?
Of course, it’s easier for an athletic person to run, but even such a big guy can run not only for burgers, but also to compete. Image: Championship
Contents
- 1 Speed running record
- 2 How fast can a person run
- 3 Why swimming is harder than running
- 4 How to swim faster
Speed running record
On land records in the 100-meter dash have been recorded since 2009 for men and since 1988 for women. Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt ran the distance in just 9.58 secondswith a top speed of almost 45 kilometers per hour, beating his previous world record by just under a tenth of a second. The women's record belongs to the American athlete Florence Griffith Joyner, who overcame the distance in 10.49 seconds.
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Since records began in 1912, the time to complete the 100-meter distance for men has decreased by about a second. Women have run three seconds faster since the first record was set in 1922. Although Florence Griffith Joyner is the current female record holder, that record is in question. Winds of more than 2 meters per second cancel new records. The instruments recorded zero wind at the time of the race, but in other events that day the gusts were quite strong. However, the record remains valid.
Since 1968, some records have been strangely higher than previous ones. This is due to the transition to electronic timing with an accuracy of hundredths of a second. Previous manual times were rounded to the nearest tenth of a second.
Fast running is not only strength, but technique. Therefore, to achieve records, it is not enough to just pump your legs, but you have to train for years. Image: Twam
How fast can a person run
Based on a person's gait and muscle strength, research shows that people at their limit can run at about 60 km/h. That's 100 meters in 5.625 seconds. But the reality of sprint speed has a lot to do with technique, says Ross Miller, a biomechanist at the University of Maryland, College Park.
The sprint should be as hard as you can. At every moment you must exert maximum effort. — says Miller.
Based on this, we can say that maximum speed depends on how little time it takes our feet to contact the ground, while exerting force, necessary to move forward.
Perhaps no one has ever run at top speed because there were no people with the physical capabilities, Miller says. Or maybe the fact is thatthe right person did not have access to trainingor «didn’t put everything together in a perfect race.”
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Why swimming is more difficult than running
It is much more difficult for a person move quickly in the water. In the 50-meter freestyle, the men's record is held by Brazilian swimmer Cesar Cielo Filho, who in 2009 swimmed the length of the pool (50 meters) in 20.91 seconds— that's just under a quarter of Bolt's record-setting average running speed. In 2023, Swedish swimmer Sarah Sjöström swam the distance in 23.61 seconds and became the women's record holder. Both best times are about three seconds less than the first records set in the 1970s.
Pool or river: where is better to swim and what you need to know before swimming.
Since records were set in the late 1970s, world record times for the 50m freestyle for men and women have dropped by about three seconds. A wave of new records came in 2008 and 2009, when athletes were given a new line of swimsuits by Speedo. The special fabric compressed swimmers and made them more streamlined, reducing drag in the water. This gave swimmers wearing them a speed advantage. The suits were banned from competition in 2010.
Swimming is more difficult than running due to the high resistance of the water. Image: Mad Wave
Swimming is slower than running largely because water is substantially denser than air, according to Timothy Way, a fluid dynamics specialist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. And the body itself creates enormous resistance due to its shape.
How to swim faster
As for swimming speed, thenit is unknown how great the opportunities for growthare. Swimming with your body parallel to the surface of the water can help eliminate the drag of our less-than-ideal proportions. Super-fast freestyle swimmers also raise their elbows as high as possible above the water, dropping their arms almost perpendicular to the water to pull themselves forward.
How does swimming affect your brain?
Simply put, in order to swim as fast as possible, you need to reduce the resistance and increase the power of the stroke. The first is possible by moving your hands above the surface of the water, and the second by grueling training in the gym.
But the most important thing is that for proper and fast swimming you need technique, technique and technique again. Be it a training technique or one that is used directly in competitions. In any case, athletes have to constantly work on themselves, and progress becomes less and less significant, because we are gradually approaching our evolutionary limit. Although, of course, we haven’t reached it yet.