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Fastest runner in the world6/21/2023 ![]() ![]() ![]() Texas Christian University’s Leland set the fastest 100 y time of the year in 9.4w and ran 9.6 for 101 y on 29 March in Dallas as he was set back one y for a false start! That cost him about a tenth when the World Record was 9.5. The 8.7 figure translates to a 10.51 m/s. No details were given about how this apparatus was operating, but stopwatches caught him at 8.7, which improved the World Best set by Paddock anyway. Timed in 8.4 for 100 yards from a flying start, according to an electrical device. Charles Best in an indoor track in Toronto, and the sprinter, wearing short spikes, reached 10.44 m/s as he was timed in 0.438 for a 5 yards section during a 65 yards race in 7.00. Coincidentally, the 100m winner Percy WILLIAMS (CAN) was the subject of a similar experiment by Dr. “Hank” Russell’s personal bests stood as 9.7 at 100 y (1926), 10.7e at 100 m (1928), 21.5 at 220 y and 21.4 for the straight course (1926) and he became Olympic champion at 4×100 m and reached the 100m semi-final at 1928 Games. Hill received the Nobel Price in Physiology or Medicine in 1922 for “his discovery relating to the production of heat in the muscle”. Archibald Vivian Hill’s series of a lectureship in chemistry at Cornell University from February to June 1927. The experiments were made with local sprinters at the Schoellkopf Field straight track at Ithaca’s campus, as part of Dr. The passage of a thin steel magnet on the runner’s jersey induced a current in the coil recorded by the galvanometer and printed on a moving photographic paper. Coils of wire were arranged parallel to the track connected to a galvanometer and were placed at distances from the start of 1, 3, 6, 10, 15, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100, 120, 140, 160, 180 and 200 yards. Henry Russel (USA) Ithaca, NY Spring 1927Įlectronically timed in 1.745 for 20 yards interval during a 200 yards race (straight lane) in 19.455. A time of 1.7 for 20 yards, hence 10.76 m/s would be closer to Paddock’s actual sprinting abilities. But given that the accuracy of hand timing back then was only 1/5 of a second, no credit can be given to such measurements. The 0.6 second time for the fastest 10 yards segment is an impossible 15,24 m/s and the 20 yards segment in 1.4 translates to a 13,06 m/s speed that is not reliable either. ![]() Paddock may have run faster for a shorter segment of races: he was officially hand-timed in 8 4/5 at 90 yards and 9 3/5 at 100 yards during an 110 yards race in 10 1/5 in Pasadena on 18 June 1926, beating or equalling World Bests. The 1920 Olympic champion at 100m ran the 100 yards in 9 4/5, just missing the then-World Record (9 3/5), and then decided to be timed in 100 yards from flying start, and also won the 220 yards by 10 yards in 21 1/5. Hand timed in 8.9 for 100 yards from flying start (25 yards run-up). The first estimation of human’s top speed dates back to 1886 in Étienne-Jules Marey’s work as reported in the Weekly Reports of the Science Academy’s sessions: “The speed of progression increases indefinitely with the rapidity of cadence, and tends towards limits that seem to be around 10 meters per second.” The following recorded speeds mix biomechanical reports and more casual results, which sometimes lack precision and accuracy, especially the hand time splits which can be ‘too good to be true’, but I still chose to present them in respect to their historical significance. However, during the XXth century, it was hard enough to have an undisputable official timing of the races, let alone accurate measurements of the top speeds attained by the sprinters. But it took about 50 years before this top speed received enough attention to get quantified in flying runs or race breakdowns using either manual or electric timing. “The top speed is seldom obtained until 40 yards,” wrote Ed James about sprinting in his Practical Training in 1877. Nowadays, it has become a centre of attention for coaches, media and fans. Indeed, for decades, science researchers have focused either on the start through biomechanical analysis or speed endurance with physiological studies, mainly for two reasons: top speed was thought to be not much trainable, and it is technically difficult to measure. Top speed is the parameter of the sprint races that is the most correlated with the final result, yet it has been the least investigated one. Using bibliographical sources, including some unreleased data, it gives an account of the scientific challenge to record the human locomotion. This is the first time an historical progression of the highest speed ever recorded is published. ![]()
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