Usain Bolt has been called many things at these Olympics including the fastest man on Earth as he currently holds the 100m record of 9.58 seconds which we were reliably informed makes him the 18th person to hold such a record.
The first was an American called Don Lippincott who ran 100m 10.6 seconds in 1912 and over the last 100 years the time has come down gradually but at some point we will reach the natural limit that the speed the human body can move at and physiologist and biomechanist Peter Weyand of the Department of Applied Physiology & Wellness in the Annette Caldwell Simmons School of Education and Human Development has done the maths and has worked out that the limit for any human being to run the 100m is 9.26 seconds.
The way that our bodies are put together means that man is physically unable to run faster than 30 mph, with the fastest speed ever recorded by a human credited to Canada's Donovan Bailey who hit 27.07mph in winning the 100m title at the 1996 Olympics in a then world record of 9.84 sec.
That said, Weyland explains that it is impossible to predict with any real accuracy the limits of our capabilities because of the freakishness of athletic talent at the extreme margins of humanity. Bolt for example.
'Studying the body types of the top 45 100-meter sprinters in the last 15 years, almost all conform to a certain short body type with fast-twitch muscles which allows the body to accelerate quickly but Bolt combines the mechanical advantages of a taller men's longer stride with the fast-twitch fibers of the smaller men'.
Another consideration is improvements in track surfaces and running shoes as have advances in training methods and nutrition but we're very close to the edge," says Weyand.
So that would seem the end for the smaller sprinters, the only person who could run faster than whatever time the world record stands at when Bolt leaves the sport is someone who is not only blessed with the same freaky, physiological make up of Bolt, but is also slightly taller.
2 comments:
The outer limits of what homo sapien can achieve physically will either increase or decrease according to the direction evolutionary pressures take us in... and this direction is not always positive, as is nicely explained in this article.
until bioengineering is allowed...
q
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