Olympic performance analysis

Breaking down the Olympic Games

An interesting article was published this week by the BBC, looking at some of the performances from last year's Olympic Games.

We received a couple of emails about the article, and I think it will make an interesting post for us to look at next week. But I'm going to hold off on those until next week, when I have more time and have given some thought to the information in this article. And you can also ruminate on the information in the article until then!

There are a few interesting observations. For example:

In the 800m event, Canada's Gary Reed ran his fastest 100m segment between 700 and 800m. For those who've followed this site for the last year, you'll be well aware that this is NOT the best way to run an 800m race (or any race shorter than 800m for that matter), and that best performances come when the athlete gets slower and slower. More on that next week!

The observation is made that the decisive moves come not in the final 100m but around the back straight. This is not all that surprising, to be honest, but worth looking at. I hope the data are published in more detail, but until then, it should provide some interesting discussion, which we'll do next weekend.

Enjoy the tennis action, and join us next week!

Ross