Are athletes really getting faster, better, stronger?

correlations werent on your school syllabus?

 

Incidentaly the 50 mile world record has stood since 1983, and there are big cash prizes in that distance.

 

You have no f*cking clue what you are talking about.

I listed the top 10 100 meter performers for 2018. Not a one was over 175. Bolt is an extreme outlier. Guys that tall usually can't perform in the 100 meters. Do you remember the last guy that big who was any good? Of course you don't because you don't have a f*cking clue what you are talking about. His name was Francis Obikwelu, another outlier. You strip the outliers and you get the same body type, 5 foot 11 guys who weigh between 150 and 175 dominate the event. Oh, you mean like 5 foot 11, 165 pound Jessie Owens? Exactly. Like Bob Hayes? Like Jimmy Hines. Like Pietra Mennea. Like Calvin Smith. Like Don Quarrie. Like Valeri Borzov. Like ALL of the TOP TEN 2018 sprinters I listed. I could go on till I turn blue.

Using Tom Burke as a reference point is farcical. He probably wasn't the 100th fastest guy in the world in 1896. He was a white guy who had the money for a boat ticket to Athens. I beat his best time when I was in 8th grade and I wasn't any great shakes.

Do you have a clue as to why BMI might have changed a bit in sprinters? Donovan Bailey, Linford Christie, Allan Wells, Ben Johnson? All yoked and all on the gear. Plus, and a big plus, in Owens' day you stopped competing after college, at 21 or 22. If you did compete beyond, you help a full time job. Now guys are sprinting into their late 30's. They tend to fill out a bit. And then, yeah, the gear, too.

 

It looks like you're knowledgeable guy when it comes to sprint runs. Just curious, what was your best result at 100 m, and did you ever take PEDs (if so, how it affected your results?)

 

Well D.Green and D.Sanders still have some of the fastest 40 times when that wasnt as important, almost 30 yrs later ,same with G.Sayers almost 20 yrs before them. Lebron James is a total freak of athlete , but give me the mental toughness and skill as well as the athletic ability of M.Jordan any day of the week esp when considering the physical toughness of the game and teams he played against. Triple G, D.Wilder, A.Joshua, Lomochenko, look good to today's fans who probably started watching boxing during the 1990's. But to boxing fans who watched boxing yrs before the 90's we at least I see that as far as skills are concerned they are severely lacking and their opponents are much worse and wouldn't have even been considered a club fighter during the golden era of boxing from the late 1930's to the early 1990's. So yes supplements, better diets, performance enhancing drugs may make a better athlete as far as longevity is concerned . But it definitely doesn't make a better athlete or better fighter as far as prime of career is concerned.

 

as athleticism improves, the actual technical skills in each sport are fading away.

 

You mean using PED's...instead of good "ol fashioned" hard work?...then yeah!!! Cheating your way to the top!!!

 

I also find comparing boxers to sprinters kind of off track, as boxing is more of a total package sport--reflexes, quickness (not running speed) stamina, strength.

So I was wondering how have the decathlon champions evolved?

First here are some selected historical figures and years Olympic champions:

Jim Thorpe (1912)-----6' 1" 190
Glenn Morris (1936)----6' 2" 185
Bob Mathias (1948-52)--6' 3" 200
Rafer Johnson (1960)----6' 3" 200
Bill Toomey (1968)-----6' 2" 185

And here are the top ten all-time decathlon scorers off wikipedia-mainly recent competitors:

Ashton Eaton-----6' 1" 185
Roman Sebrie----6' 1" 195
Tomas Dvorak----6' 1" 195
Dan O'Brien------6' 2" 185
Daley Thompson--6' 0" 200
Kevin Mayer-------6' 1" 170
Jurgin Hingman----6' 7" 225
Bryan Clay---------5' 11" 185
Erki Nool-----------6' 0" 185
Damian Warner----6' 1" 185

My observation is that the size explosion has made no impact on an event which requires athletic versatility.

Jurgin Hingman is an obvious outlier. He competed in the 1980's, more than 30 years ago.

Mathias and Johnson from the 1948 to 1960 era were actually on the big side for top decathlon men.

*I did not attempt to check the height and weight for all olympic champions so I don't know the biggest and smallest gold medal winners. Might be interesting if anyone knows.

**another observation is that these heights and weights would compare to the champions and top contenders in the heavyweight division from the 1890's through the 1950's with the exception of only a few outliers. I guess an issue is do the "supplements" distort away from athleticism as the crucial factor to size being the overwhelming factor in heavyweight boxing.

 

So the more athletic the practitioners of a sport get, the more the technical skills will fade away?

What is the reasoning behind this claim?

 

Three quick things:

1) Very interesting stats.

2) How much have the scores/performances been improving for decathletes? Is size the only thing that has stayed the same?

3) An argument could be made that boxing differs from track and field events in that size *is* an advantage in boxing in and of itself. It gives you more reach, allows you to push your opponent around, and so on.

 

"is size the only thing that has stayed the same"

Size certainly has stayed the same in this event. The current record holder is Mayer at 6' 1" and 170. He is the same height but significantly lighter than Jim Thorpe.

On the other hand scores have improved a great deal. The first record I could find was a score of 6,087 for Alexander Klumberg in 1922. Mayer's record today is 9,126.

I think there might be a distortion here though as I doubt the old-timers were able to train full-time as the modern guys do.

"boxing differs from track and field events in that size is an advantage in boxing in and of itself. It gives you more reach, allows you to push your opponent around, and so on."

But this has always been true. There have always been guys 6' 4" or more and above 210 lbs, and even much bigger, but in the old days they weren't able to compete with the men of the size of the decathlon champions.

 

This will probably mean much only to Americans, but how do running backs in gridiron football compare? This is a position which requires all-around athletic ability. Size matters, but so does speed and agility.

Here are the top six ground gainers from 1958 and their height and weight:

1958
Jim Brown (6' 2" 230)
Alan Ameche (6' 1" 220)
Joe Perry (6' 0" 200)
Tom Tracy (5' 9" 205)
Jon Arnett (5' 11" 195)
Rick Casares (6' 2" 225)

Average 5' 11.8" 212.5 lbs

2017
Kareem Hunt (5' 11" 215)
Todd Gurley (6' 1" 225)
La'Vean Bell (6' 1" 225)
La'Sean McCoy (5' 11" 210)
Mark Ingram (5' 9" 215)
Jordan Howard (6' 0" 225)

Average 5' 11.5" 219 lbs

So there hasn't really been any explosion in size as there has been for linemen. The biggest guy is actually Brown from 1958. The old guys average out a smidgen taller and a not all that significant 6.5 lbs lighter.

 

After sleeping on it, my bottom line on the decathlon is, assuming it is correct that of all the track and field events, it is the best measure of all around athletic ability,

1-----it is certainly reasonable to conclude that the skills shown in the individual events have improved significantly over the years.

2-----the height and weight of the superior decathlon champion has not changed regardless of the expansion of the pool of talent or an increase in the general size of the population, or the use of supplements.

I wonder how the great soccer players of the past compare to more recent stars. Perhaps someone into soccer could study that.

 

The question is whether the ideal body type for boxing is closer to "decathlon-sized" (like decathlon) or "bigger-than-the-other-guy-sized" (like basketball or some positions in football).

If the former, we would expect the best fighters to remain the same size, like decathletes. If the latter, we would expect them to grow.

In either case, we might expect modern guys with the best training to be better athletes, based upon the decathlon improvement. (Unless you argue that all decathlon gains come from better technique.)

 

"whether the ideal body type for boxing is closer to 'decathlon-sized' (like decathlon) or 'bigger-then-the-other-guy-sized'"

I think both are true. The decathlon-sized is p4p true. The just being bigger is also true. In other words, athleticism and skill can be overpowered by sheer size. (Carnera beating Loughran)

"expect modern guys with the best training to be better athletes"

More skilled athletes. But are they naturally better athletes? Is their advantage being able to build on technique advances made over the years, plus having more time to devote to training? Or is it just that the larger pool of talent means that more gifted natural athletes are likely to appear? I think both are true, but the second is not an absolute. Just because the population base is much larger does necessarily lead to the best athlete in the larger pool automatically being better than the best athlete from the smaller pool. It is at least possible that a Jim Thorpe (or a Jim Brown) was more gifted than anyone is today.

I wonder how many race horses are foaled this year compared to 1952 or 1970. If a lot more, does it necessarily follow that this would produce a better race horse than Ribot or Secretariat?