What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

[gh]

As I've always understood it, the IAAF chose 2.0mps (4.473mph) as a nice round number which also happened to be right about where they calculated that it gave 0.1sec of aid, meaning the smallest increment by which you could break the World Record.

Now that WRs are measured to 100ths instead of 10ths, doesn't it follow that anything over 0.2mps (0.45mph) should constitute illegal?

[EPelle]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

Now you can scratch that 10,49.

[Conor Dary]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

'Now that WRs are measured to 100ths instead of 10ths, doesn't it follow that anything over 0.2mps (0.45mph) should constitute illegal? '

I agree, lets make track even more incomprehensible to the public.

By the way, I presume you are joking.

[tafnut]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

yeah, let's make it TOTALLY impossible to set any records - either the wind is in your face or it's illegal!

[Asterix]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

Now that WRs are measured to 100ths instead of 10ths, doesn't
>it follow that anything over 0.2mps (0.45mph) should constitute illegal?

Except that you are neglecting the fact that wind assistance (or detriment if negative) functions as a square of the wind speed due to it being applied to the cross-sectional area of the body.

Presuming you want to reduce the maximum allowable assistance from 0.1 seconds to 0.01 seconds, you can't similarly divide wind speed by 10 as well.

[mike renfro]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

No, the 10.49 stands. Wind 0.0. As Garry said at the meet, "Get your wolf tickets here. One day special."

[Jon]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

>Wind 0.0




LOL, yeh... good one...!

[Halfmiler2]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

I don't know if Garry remembers this one:

A couple days after the 10.49 at the 1988 OT, the TAFNOT tour was having a reception on the off day under a big tent in the Indy zoo. A huge thunderstorm rolled through and everyone huddled under the tent hoping it would not get blown over. Garry, yelled out, "Those 0.0 winds will do it everytime!"

[BCBaroo]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

Speaking of "The 10.49". Did any of the other women run anywhere in the neighborhood of 10.80 that day with the obviously illegal winds of the day? I don't recall. How about the men? Any great wind-aided times?

[Jon]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

>Speaking of "The 10.49". Did any of the other women run anywhere in the
>neighborhood of 10.80 that day with the obviously illegal winds of the day? I
>don't recall. How about the men? Any great wind-aided times?

In FloJo's 10.49 race, Diane Williams was 2nd in 10.86 (another big PB... her previous best was 10.94A), and Gail Devers was 3rd in 10.97.

Sheila Echols ran in the quarter-final after FloJo's (wind was still 0.0, of course...) and she ran 10.83! Her next fastest was 10.99 (which she ran the day after in the semi final). Alice Brown was 2nd in that race with 10.92 (yep, you guessed it... a PB. Her previous best was 11.01).

As for the men, their final was held on the same day as the women's quarter-final (the 10.49 day). However, the wind gage actually worked for that race, and it read +5.2. Seven men went under 10s in that race. The result was:

1. Carl Lewis - 9.78
2. Dennis Mitchell - 9.86
3. Calvin Smith - 9.87
4. Albert Robinson - 9.88
5. Joe DeLoach - 9.90
6. Mike Marsh - 9.94
7. Emmit King - 9.98
8. Lee McNeil - 10.08

[basehead617]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

wow, i never knew about this..

possible juicing, 5m/sec wind.. 10.49 starts to look more like 10.80 or so =)

[Jon]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

>wow, i never knew about this..

possible juicing, 5m/sec wind.. 10.49 starts
>to look more like 10.80 or so =)



There was some sort of scientific study into that race, where they tried to predict what the wind was during that race (using video tape analysis, weather reports, individual athlete analysis, etc...), and they reckon that the wind was at least 5.0m/s, which would make the 10.49 worth 10.70 at the fastest. This would make more sense, as Flo Jo always used to save her best until the final. The "real" world record should be 10.61 (from the Indy final).

Difficult to say how much faster the juice made her! But that can be said of a load of athletes from the women's all-time sprint lists.

[RMc]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

>Now that WRs are measured to 100ths instead of 10ths, doesn't
>it follow that anything over 0.2mps (0.45mph) should constitute illegal?

OK, guys, don't you know when Garry is trying to bait you into a much blown out discussion? ;^) (And don't you have enough to do at this time of year, Garry??? :^) ).

Of, he wrote an editorial a few years back advocating an increase in the the limit to something like 5 mps. I can't remember if this discussion was in the editorial or in the preceding one on darkwing about whether the the limit logically should be adjusted downward given the change in timing methods since 1936 when the limit was first established.

I had advocated for lifting the limit entirely because you don't see other sports declaring that one-third of their performances are not eligible for record consideration (there had been some statistic to this effect in TFN.) At the time Ken Griffey was chasing the home run record in the tiny Kingdome. Garry's argument convinced me that the 5 mps limit was sufficient and would allow 95% of the performances to stand for record consideration.

Since we can't possibly control for all factors, e.g., temp, humidity, altitude, crowd participation, the starter, etc, it seems pretty ridiculous to overemphasize controlling one single aspect of the equation. It seems to me that you either have to move to much stricter standards on ALL of the other factors (e.g., only 70-80 degress with 40to 60% humidity, all below 500m, mechanical starter only, only in stadiums holding at least 30,000, etc.), or accept the world as it is, and relax the standard to a level that captures all but the outlier conditions (and 95% statistically is a heuristic "boundary" for outliers.)

Note that most of the records would change little, if at all (I don't know the wind reading on Thompson's 9.69A), and FloJo's 10.49 would be much less controversial, as the winds were in the 5 mps range that day.

[Jon]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

>I don't know the wind reading on
>Thompson's 9.69A



+5.7m/s

[basehead617]

Re: What Constitutes An Illegal Wind?

RMc:
i think wind is the biggest potential factor of all you mentioned, especially at very high velocities, by far.. removing the limit altogether would be pretty nuts. would championships only be held in places that are notoriously windy, to bait more WRs? who knows. anyway, making it 3 m/sec or maybe 4 seems reasonable to me. A LOT of stuff gets thrown out with it being 2.