As I watched the Olympic track events this year, I kept thinking, "Wow! They are going so slow!" Much faster than anything I could throw down, of course, but only two World Records were broken and only one more (maybe two) were even threatened. Was it a slow track? Was it the lack of the ever-competitive Russians? Was it because of why the Russians were largely dis-included? Were prelims faster than normal or less rest prior to finals?
Judging only against World Record times (and controlling for nothing), I got the image below. I am sure there is some correction you could include for difference between distances and "percent of World Record" is not a perfect measure. But there are some interesting points in this. I included the marathons for a point of comparison even though they weren't run on the track; they actually jibe with the race walks fairly well.
Sprints were remarkably consistent...until you look at the open 400 races: men significantly faster, women significantly slower. The relays all make some reasonable sense. The American women have a lot of 100m depth right now and had something to prove after they were given a Mulligan.
Big question: What was going on during the 1500s? Both were paced somewhere between NCAA D2 and D3. This, to me, smacks of something other than just strategic racing. Men's 5k seems to have suffered from strategic running, but was on par with the 10k...and both in the ball park with the walks and marathons.
Women's 3k steeple was the other race that really threatened the WR and it, along with the unbelievable women's 10k, seems to belie any trend you could suggest for decreasing returns for being on the track longer.
All of the very fast events were run in about the first third of the events, but not all of the events in that early group were comparatively fast, so it's hard to say that something like the weather was a direct factor. The women's 10k was the first medal event, but the men's 10k was the very next day. There may be a correlation to distance running in the morning.
A side point not shown on the plot: In three of the four events closest to (or past) WR pace (M 400, W 4x100, & W 3k Steeple), the pace of the silver medalist was within one standard deviation of the mean percent difference across all events. You have to look down to 4th place in the women's 10k to get back within that same one standard deviation.
ETA: "% Difference" isn't quite the correct label for the chart. It's more "Fractional Difference", i.e. 0.02 is 2%.
Judging only against World Record times (and controlling for nothing), I got the image below. I am sure there is some correction you could include for difference between distances and "percent of World Record" is not a perfect measure. But there are some interesting points in this. I included the marathons for a point of comparison even though they weren't run on the track; they actually jibe with the race walks fairly well.
Sprints were remarkably consistent...until you look at the open 400 races: men significantly faster, women significantly slower. The relays all make some reasonable sense. The American women have a lot of 100m depth right now and had something to prove after they were given a Mulligan.
Big question: What was going on during the 1500s? Both were paced somewhere between NCAA D2 and D3. This, to me, smacks of something other than just strategic racing. Men's 5k seems to have suffered from strategic running, but was on par with the 10k...and both in the ball park with the walks and marathons.
Women's 3k steeple was the other race that really threatened the WR and it, along with the unbelievable women's 10k, seems to belie any trend you could suggest for decreasing returns for being on the track longer.
All of the very fast events were run in about the first third of the events, but not all of the events in that early group were comparatively fast, so it's hard to say that something like the weather was a direct factor. The women's 10k was the first medal event, but the men's 10k was the very next day. There may be a correlation to distance running in the morning.
A side point not shown on the plot: In three of the four events closest to (or past) WR pace (M 400, W 4x100, & W 3k Steeple), the pace of the silver medalist was within one standard deviation of the mean percent difference across all events. You have to look down to 4th place in the women's 10k to get back within that same one standard deviation.
ETA: "% Difference" isn't quite the correct label for the chart. It's more "Fractional Difference", i.e. 0.02 is 2%.