Fastest 100m on cinders

[Guest]

In a similar vein as the thread about the non-fiberglass PV WR . . .

Does anyone know what the fastest 100 meters on cinders (or grass, or anything non-synthetic) is? I know Hayes ran 10.06 in the '64 Tokyo OG. His record was broken on a synthetic track.

Does anyone know of anything better?

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

I can't say I "know" in the strictest sense, but I would be very very surprised if I was wrong: Hayes' 10.06 is the fastest ever run on cinders.

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

The best auto-timed 100m on cinders is Jim Hines 10.03 "unofficially" when setting his 9.9h WR at the AAU championships in Sacramento 1968.

[JRM]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

If it's unofficial, it's unofficial. So, 10.06 is still the time to beat.

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

>If it's unofficial, it's unofficial. So, 10.06
>is still the time to beat.

Well, in those days ALL auto-times were very much unofficial. Hayes 10.06 four years earlier was certainly NOT the official result of his race in Tokyo.
The official time was 10.0 (one decimal). Just like 9.9 (one decimal) was the official time for Jim Hines 9.96 in Mexico 1968.
Both those times were based on auto-timing but according to the rules in force then a 0.05 was deducted (in a strange attempt to compensate for the observed difference between auto-timing and the then normally used hand-timing) after which the times were rounded-off to the nearest tenth to "appear like proper hand-times".
Thus 10.06 - 0.05 = 10.01 rounded off to 10.0 for Hayes.
Actually it should be pointed out that "back then" auto-timing was not at all popular among the sprinters because "times got so much slower" and no records could be achieved.
Thus most meet organisers (like those of the 1968 AAU) used the hand-timing for the official results and had the auto-timing only as some kind of back-up system. The 1968 AAU was also "rewarded" with no less than three 9.9h world records (although the auto-times varied by more than one tenth between the "fastest" and the "slowest" of those 9.9's).
However, when auto-timing (in 1976?) was made mandatory for sprint records the first set of auto-timed world records where retrieved retroactively. Thus we got Hines 9.96, Smith 19.83 and Evans 43.86 as the official world records - although none of these times were the official results issued at the meet in question eight years earlier.
If the IAAF allowed retroactivity for the official World Records I can't understand why we should harsher in our judgements a further quarter of century onwards.
Hines DID run 10.03 (all the auto-times were published in TFN's report of the meet) in Sacramento.

[Bob H]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

The problem with auto times from that era in the US is that many of them were produced by a company that sometimes, but not always, built a delay of .05 seconds into the timer. I'm not sure there were ever records kept of when they did this and when they did not. At some point, when this company was getting out of the track business, I recall trying to see if there was an archive that would include this information, and I was told that all of the relevant company records had been thrown away. So we'll never really know.

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

>The problem with auto times from that era in the
>US is that many of them were produced by a
>company that sometimes, but not always, built a
>delay of .05 seconds into the timer. I'm not
>sure there were ever records kept of when they
>did this and when they did not. At some point,
>when this company was getting out of the track
>business, I recall trying to see if there was an
>archive that would include this information, and
>I was told that all of the relevant company
>records had been thrown away. So we'll never
>really know.

The recently deceased Bob Sparks kept his hands on a lot of that info. He supplied the OG auto-timing for Wallechinsky's "Complete Book of the Olympics" and has tons of info from British meets. He was excpetionally thorough on exactly how the timing was conducted. You can view it at:

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rsparks/auto-uk.htm

http://easyweb.easynet.co.uk/~rsparks/auto-ch.htm

Unfortunately, I fear that much of his knowledge has left this earth with him.

[Bob H]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

I think you missed my point. I explicitly referred to auto times in the US. Bob Sparks didn't know any more about that than I did--in fact, he asked me many years ago what information I could provide on that subject and what I told him was what my message above said.

[jsquire]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

So I guess the answer is that the record was either by Hayes or Hines, but we don't now for sure.

In the realm of pure speculation, I'd once heard that a synthetic track is approximately 0.2 seconds faster per 100m than a cinder track. This treats all tracks of both types as the same, which they clearly are not.

But if you're willing to make a tenuous assumption, then you might say that Hayes & Hines could have run in the 9.83-9.86 range on today's tracks. Then you take out your Big Green Book and factor in wind and elevation . . . and it gets really complicated. And then there's the speakers behind the blocks which eliminate a few hundredths of a second for the sound to get from the gun to the sprinters, and on and on and on.

It's clear, though, that if we had a time machine Hayes & Hines just as they were would be competitive with today's best sprinters.

[gh]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

Re being able to trust Bulova autotimesd as auto (as released): the late Don Potts, did a LOT of research into this,and I'm confident that any marks that are in the general realm as auto have indeed been vetted as to figuring whether or not there was a delay in the figures.

As I recall, the one famous example that remains in limbo is the 60y at the '64 AAU.

[Bob H]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

But weren't those Bulova times generally reported in tenths for many years?

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

In the realm of pure speculation, I'd
>once heard that a synthetic track is
>approximately 0.2 seconds faster per 100m than a
>cinder track. This treats all tracks of both
>types as the same, which they clearly are
>not.

One of the most persistent "urban legends" of athletics is that synthetic surfaces are SO much faster than cinders.
It seems that everybody has forgotten that there actually was a period (mid-60's to early 70's) when top athletes alternated between synthetic and non-synthetic WITHOUT showing any significant higher level of performance on the modern tracks.
Take Hines in 1968 as a good example. He did indeed run also a number of meets on synthetic tracks that year. His best times were 10.03 on cinders at sea-level and the 9.96 on synthetics at high altitude (Mexico).
On longer distances Jim Ryun never ran faster on synthetics than the 3:33 he did on cinders and Ron Clarke ran 27:39 on cinders - and 27:47 on synthetics.
So actually a top-class cinders track in good weather was not demonstrably slower than a synthetic track.
The really important advantage with the modern tracks was that they were ALWAYS good regardless of weather and usage. So great performances were no longer lost on a track where you were up to your knees in mud.

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

Sure, but synthetic technology has improved in the course of 35 years. Could be that the v1.0 "tartan" synthetics of the 1960s were soft. There was also lot of rubberized asphalt back then, which got sticky on hot days.

My (wildly speculative) guess is that today's top tracks are worth 0.5 seconds per lap over cinder.

[Guest]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

>Sure, but synthetic technology has improved in
>the course of 35 years. Could be that the v1.0
>"tartan" synthetics of the 1960s were soft.
>There was also lot of rubberized asphalt back
>then, which got sticky on hot days.
My (wildly
>speculative) guess is that today's top tracks are
>worth 0.5 seconds per lap over cinder.

No, v1.0 tartan was actually VERY hard, especially after it had "settled" after a year or so of usage and hardening.
The only problems with the "original" were that it was degraded by UV radiation and that it became extremely slippery by rain.
Despite this, first generation tartan was retained in all the major stadiums in eastern Germany for the duration of the GDR (up until about 1990) era just because they were considered "so fast".
Actually claims of modern manufacturers that their track is significantly "faster" than other brands is also impossible to back up by actual statistical evidence.
Rather those claims - that with amazing success have become accepted and re-iterated as "the undisputable truth" by the media and the track community - should be regarded as shrewd marketing.
All modern facilities used for top-class athletics have "fast" tracks regardless of brand. The "track factor" is so marginal that it is impossible to discern - because it is "drenched" by the weather (wind and temperature) and competition factors (and, when appropriate, by the altitude factor).
Thus it is still the athlete that is the truly decisive factor when it comes to producing fast times.
PS. Correction to previous posts by me: Hines "re-covered" Mexico-time was of course 9.95, not 9.96 as I erroneously wrote.

[X King]

Re: Fastest 100m on cinders

>Sure, but synthetic technology has improved in
>the course of 35 years. Could be that the v1.0
>"tartan" synthetics of the 1960s were soft.
>There was also lot of rubberized asphalt back
>then, which got sticky on hot days.

My (wildly
>speculative) guess is that today's top tracks are
>worth 0.5 seconds per lap over cinder.


Your probably right with your estimations.
My estimations for 100m times from Cinder Tracks to Today's Asphalt/Tartan Track is 0.14s(The estimation comes from my friend's personal experiences when they used to run on both Tracks and then compare their times and work out the average)
150m:0.21s,200m:0.28s,300m:0.42s etc...

So compared to my estimations your estimation of 0.5s is very good.

So following this Hayes' 10.06s is worth 9.92s an Hines' 10.03s is worth 9.89s if they were both running on Tartan.
So Hines' 9.95s at the 1968 Olympic Games is 'only' worth 10.09s on Cinder. So his 10.03s in intrinstically better performance compared to his 9.95s in the Mexico OG.

X King