The Reality of Olympic Sprinting

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrick Gravelle
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
Mathematical Statistics ◽  
World Record ◽  
Exact Answer ◽  
Statistics And Probability ◽  
The World ◽  
Great Simplicity

Every four years, people from around the world gather together to watch the Summer Olympic Games. It is a time of excitement, unity, and excellent competition. However, it is also a time of inspiration for those watching, to pursue a new passion in sports. Moreover, one of the sports all individuals are so easily drawn is that of sprinting. For there is a great simplicity, yet true power to being one of the fastest men or women on the planet. Whether an individual is competing or modestly observing, the world predominantly desires to see, not just who is fast, but who is the fastest. Moreover, this comes from many with the expectation of a world record from one or all sprinting events. However, are these expectations too high, or should the world feel let down when another Olympics passes without a new sprinting world record to claim? This paper aims to provide the exact answer to that question using the fundamental tools from mathematical statistics and probability.

Theorizing Paula Radcliffe: Representing a Nation

2010 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 285-300 ◽  
Author(s):  
Theresa Walton
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
World Record ◽  
British Identity ◽  
National Team ◽  
Media Attention ◽  
The World ◽  
Media Constructions ◽  
Complex Construction

In setting the world record at the London Marathon in 2003, Paula Radcliffe not only beat her female competitors but also her countrymen becoming the fastest British runner of the year, male or female, making her the nation’s best hope for the Olympic Games in 2004. From this position, she garnered a significant amount of media attention, becoming Britain’s most famous runner. Yet as a representative of her nation, both symbolically and on the national team, her place remains complicated. Radcliffe’s significant accomplishments, which were in part understood as British success, were also constructed as a foil for the lack of British men’s success in racialized and gendered ways. To explicate mediated articulations of national identity, I examined UK print media constructions of Radcliffe focusing on three major events of her running career: her world record, her failure to finish at the 2004 Games, and her World Championship marathon win in 2005. I found that Radcliffe achieved conditional status as a representative of Britain, while this media coverage also maintained and buttressed gendered and racialized hierarchies in the complex construction of British identity.

Book Review

2016 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 386-389
Author(s):  
Eduardo Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Urban Planning ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
City Image ◽  
European Capital Of Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The World ◽  
The City ◽  
The Olympic Games

Evinç Doğan (2016). Image of Istanbul, Impact of ECoC 2010 on The City Image. London: Transnational Press London. [222 pp, RRP: £18.75, ISBN: 978-1-910781-22-7]The idea of discovering or creating a form of uniqueness to differentiate a place from others is clearly attractive. In this regard, and in line with Ashworth (2009), three urban planning instruments are widely used throughout the world as a means of boosting a city’s image: (i) personality association - where places associate themselves with a named individual from history, literature, the arts, politics, entertainment, sport or even mythology; (ii) the visual qualities of buildings and urban design, which include flagship building, signature urban design and even signature districts and (iii) event hallmarking - where places organize events, usually cultural (e.g., European Capital of Culture, henceforth referred to as ECoC) or sporting (e.g., the Olympic Games), in order to obtain worldwide recognition. 

scholarly journals Gargantuan Hail in Argentina

2020 ◽  
Vol 101 (8) ◽  
pp. E1241-E1258 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew R. Kumjian ◽  
Rachel Gutierrez ◽  
Joshua S. Soderholm ◽  
Stephen W. Nesbitt ◽  
Paula Maldonado ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Large Population ◽  
Laser Scanner ◽  
Meteorological Conditions ◽  
Dimension Stone ◽  
World Record ◽  
Maximum Dimension ◽  
Supercell Storm ◽  
The World ◽  
Local Residents

Abstract On 8 February 2018, a supercell storm produced gargantuan (>15 cm or >6 in. in maximum dimension) hail as it moved over the heavily populated city of Villa Carlos Paz in Córdoba Province, Argentina. Observations of gargantuan hail are quite rare, but the large population density here yielded numerous witnesses and social media pictures and videos from this event that document multiple large hailstones. The storm was also sampled by the newly installed operational polarimetric C-band radar in Córdoba. During the RELAMPAGO campaign, the authors interviewed local residents about their accounts of the storm and uncovered additional social media video and photographs revealing extremely large hail at multiple locations in town. This article documents the case, including the meteorological conditions supporting the storm (with the aid of a high-resolution WRF simulation), the storm’s observed radar signatures, and three noteworthy hailstones observed by residents. These hailstones include a freezer-preserved 4.48-in. (11.38 cm) maximum dimension stone that was scanned with a 3D infrared laser scanner, a 7.1-in. (18 cm) maximum dimension stone, and a hailstone photogrammetrically estimated to be between 7.4 and 9.3 in. (18.8–23.7 cm) in maximum dimension, which is close to or exceeds the world record for maximum dimension. Such a well-observed case is an important step forward in understanding environments and storms that produce gargantuan hail, and ultimately how to anticipate and detect such extreme events.

scholarly journals Emancipating the Image: The Beijing Olympics, Regeneration, and the Power of Performance

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Mei Barker
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
Public Image ◽  
Beijing Olympics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Susan Sontag ◽  
Counter Narrative ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
The World ◽  
The Government ◽  
Rapid Transformation

“In China, what makes an image true is that it is good for people to see it.” - Susan Sontag, On Photography, 1971 The Olympic Games gave the world an opportunity to read Beijing’s powerful image-text following thirty years of rapid transformation. David Harvey argues that this transformation has turned Beijing from “a closed backwater, to an open centre of capitalist dynamism.” However, in the creation of this image-text, another subtler and altogether very different image-text has been deliberately erased from the public gaze. This more concealed image-text offers a significant counter narrative on the city’s public image and criticises the simulacrum constructed for the 2008 Olympics, both implicitly and explicitly. It is the ‘everyday’ image-text of a disappearing city still in the process of being bulldozed to make way for the neoliberal world’s next megalopolis. It exists most prominently as a filmic image text; in film documentaries about a ‘real’ hidden Beijing just below the surface of the government sponsored ‘optical artefact.’ Film has thus become a key medium through which to understand and preserve a physical city on the verge of erasure.

Engineering as a Prerequisite for Growth: New York and its Infrastructure

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Ennis ◽  
Donald Friedman
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Structural Engineering ◽  
Large City ◽  
Close Correlation ◽  
Structural Type ◽  
World City ◽  
Suspension Bridges ◽  
World Record ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
The World

<p>As a world city, New York is famous for many reasons; as a large city located primarily on islands at a complex of rivers, bays, and tidal straits, it has long depended on structural engineering for viability. Prominent structures include underwater vehicular and rail tunnels, bridges of every structural type, and aqueducts. Ten different buildings have held the world record for height, two arch bridges have held the world record for span, and four different suspension bridges have held the world record for their main span. With a multitude of successful businesses and the physical constraints of the geography, the motivation for technical innovation were present, and engineers were ready for the challenges.</p><p>These structures have generally not been built because they would break records, but rather because they served a purpose. For example, the Brooklyn Bridge, with a center span fiIy percent longer than the second- longest at the time of its construction, was built because ferries were the only transportation between New York and Brooklyn, then the first and third largest cities in the country. There is a close correlation, decade by decade and beginning in the 1880s, between what was feasible in terms of structural engineering and what has been built to enable the city to grow and prosper. This paper will examine that correlation and engineers’ role in the city’s evolution.</p>

scholarly journals Performance analysis of both sex marathon runners ranked by IAAF

2018 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-189
Author(s):  
Anselmo José Perez ◽  
Adilson Marques ◽  
Kamilla Bolonha Gomes
Keyword(s):  
Performance Analysis ◽  
Black Community ◽  
International Association ◽  
Lower Percentage ◽  
Economic Independence ◽  
World Record ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Marathon Runners ◽  
The World ◽  
World Records

Running a marathon has become the motivation to achieve success and economic independence for athletes, mainly from African countries. This feeling is more evident among the black community, considering that they have been presenting better results than white athletes. The objective of the study was to analyse the ranking of marathon runners around the world, in the last 15 years considering: 1) nationality; 2) best average time of the 100 best classified runners from the Top 100, Top 50, Top 25, Top 10 and Top 3. An analysis was made to the ranking available on the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) website, for the 100 best world results for both sexes, focusing on records from 2000 to 2014. The analysis was subdivided into ranking groups (Top 3, 10, 25, 50 and 100), resulting in 3000 records. African runners, Kenyan and Ethiopian, dominate the male ranking representing 70% of the total of runners in Top 100, keeping this proportion up to Top 3. African runners, Kenyan and Ethiopian, dominate the male ranking representing 70% of the total of runners in Top 100, keeping this proportion up to Top 3. The same is observed for females, however with a significantly lower percentage (34%), with Japanese, Ethiopian and Kenyan (17%) and an English athlete as the world record. The average time of a marathon has been decreasing in males more than in female competitions, both in Top 3 and Top 10, however still presenting a large gap from world records. 

Proceedings of the Sixth Berkeley Symposium on Mathematical Statistics and Probability.

Biometrics ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 416
Author(s):  
F. N. David ◽  
L. LeCam ◽  
J. Neyman ◽  
E. L. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Mathematical Statistics ◽  
Statistics And Probability ◽  
Berkeley Symposium

Are the World Junior Championship Finalists for Middle- and Long-Distance Events Currently Competing at International Level?

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 316-321 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federico Pizzuto ◽  
Matteo Bonato ◽  
Gialunca Vernillo ◽  
Antonio La Torre ◽  
Maria Francesca Piacentini
Keyword(s):  
Olympic Games ◽  
International Association ◽  
Age Effect ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Relative Age ◽  
Relative Age Effect ◽  
The World ◽  
Elite Level ◽  
And Gender ◽  
High Level

Purpose:To analyze how many finalists of the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) World Junior Championships (WJCs) in the middle- and long-distance track events had dropped out from high-level competitions.Methods:Starting from 2002, the 8 male and the 8 female finalists in the middle- and long-distance events of 6 editions of the WJC were followed until 2015 to evaluate how many missed the IAAF rankings for 2 consecutive years starting from the year after WJC participation. For those still competing at elite level, their careers were monitored.Results:In 2015, 61% of the 2002, 54.8% of the 2004, 48.3% of the 2006, 37.5% of the 2008, 26.2% of the 2010, and 29% of the 2012 WJC finalists were not present in the IAAF rankings. Of the 368 athletes considered, 75 (20.4%) were able to achieve the IAAF top 10 in 2.4 ± 2.2 y. There is evidence of relationships between dropout and gender (P = .040), WJC edition (P = .000), and nationality (P = .010) and between the possibility to achieve the IAAF top 10 and dropout (P = .000), continent (P = .001), relative age effect (P = .000), and quartile of birth (P = .050).Conclusions:Even if 23 of the finalists won a medal at the Olympic Games or at the World Championships, it is still not clear if participation at the WJC is a prerequisite to success at a senior level.

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