Understanding the improvements in Olympic winning performances

Any sport can be added to the Olympics, if recognized by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). However, there is no limiting definition of what constitutes a sport. First, the IOC recognizes international federations, immediately called Sports Federations (SFs). Next, any competition organized by those SFs becomes a recognized "sport". There are currently 39 Summer and 15 Winter Olympic sports and another 72 recognized sports that theoretically could be added. Among those 72 are eclectic competitions such as chess, bridge, skydiving, Formula 1 racing and guts frisbee. Through 1992, exhibition sports were included on a trial basis, a number of which became medal-sports, such as badminton, handball, baseball and taekwondo. In 2002, the IOC decided to add a summer sport only if one of the then 28 SFs was dropped. Baseball and softball were dropped effective 2012, allowing golf and rugby sevens to be added effective 2016. Following the debacle in 2013 of dropping and then reinstating wrestling, the IOC changed to Olympic Agenda 2020, allowing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics to add any recognized requested and then approved new sports not to exceed 500 athletes. Baseball, softball, surfing, skateboarding, karate and sport climbing were added for 2020. For 2024 and beyond, the number of any new sports athletes has to be included in a Summer Olympics limit of 10,500. For Paris in 2024, surfing, skateboarding, sport climbing and break dancing have been added. Meanwhile, international esports have become immensely popular. Thomas Bach, IOC president, has said that organizations such as the International eSports Federation are too commercial to be recognized and esports are too violent. However, esports that simulate other recognized sports could be considered if requested by the recognized SF, making the various soccer FIFA esports quite viable. Various e-motor sports and simulations of other Olympic sports would also be viable.

A previous study of aggregated swimming events showed that male and female Olympic champions were equally trained and efficient. Here, events are disaggregated for 17 Olympic and World Championship competitions involving 18 events at various distances for all four stokes and for the individual medley. The velocity ratio of female/male champions increased for all 11 longer freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and individual medley distances. That result is constant with women having relatively less drag than for men at slower velocities. For the butterfly stroke, champion women had a lower velocity ratio than men at 100 m than at 50 m but a slightly higher velocity ratio at 200 m than at 50 m, consistent with the much higher energy demands of that stroke and with women having a lower anaerobic capacity than men which adversely affects the 100 m butterfly. Studies of yearly bests for men and women and of all-time bests in each direction for men and women across the 34 km English Channel and across the 32.2 km Catalina (California USA) Channel showed that the best women were 94% as fast as men across the English Channel but 107% as fast (7 % faster than men) across the Catalina Channel. Those results are constant with women being better able to convert body fat to energy after about 2 hours across each Channel but losing drag advantage due to cross-English Channel tides while gaining drag advantage across the Catalina Channel where the swim is directly with or against the tides. 1. INTRODUCTION The goal of this paper is to significantly extend the results of Stefani (2017). In that paper, kinesiology and physics were employed to establish the equations of motion for a swimmer and thereby to solve for the velocity ratio of women/men based on the derived equations. Using past evaluations of the kinesiology and swimming parameters by gender, it was possible to estimate what the average velocity ratio should be under the assumption that women and men were equally trained and efficient. An average was aggregated for the actual velocity ratio of Olympic champion women/men for all common swimming events of a given Olympics and then across all Olympics for the five Olympic time periods starting when women entered competition in 1912. It was concluded that female champions had gained in velocity ratio until values became consistent with equal training and efficiency compared to their male counterparts. In this paper, we will tabulate average velocity ratios for each distance of each of the four strokes and the individual medley using winning male and female velocities for an ensemble of 7 Olympics plus 10 World Championships. We will then seek to explain the causes of those trends versus distance using kinesiology and physics, thus creating a much higher level of understanding of gender differences. The distances used previously will be extended to the more than 30 km of swimming across the Catalina Channel (California, USA) and the English Channel. The kinesiology and hydrodynamics of swimming will now be developed as discussed by Lerner (1996), Stefani (2008, 2014 and 2017) and Barbosa (2010). A swimmer applies power to the water causing the water to apply an equal and opposite power to the swimmer. Power has units of force times velocity.

A data base of Ancient Olympic events was exhaustively researched by the Perseus Project and combined into one table by Wikipedia, containing nearly 900 results. The Wikipedia table was sorted to obtain the distribution of events and to identify the most successful Olympians of Ancient Greece. From 776 BC through 277 AD, just 30 events were contested, eight of which were offered only once. An average of only 3.5 events were contested in each Olympics. Of the five sports, track and field (called athletics internationally) comprised 49% of all contested events with the 200 m stadion sprint, comprising 30% of all contested events. Competition was so highly focused that winning once was very difficult and winning repeatedly was remarkable. From the sorted winners, 12 superstars of antiquity are chosen for discussion. These superstars include the most unlikely winner in that men's Olympics, a woman, Kyniska of Sparta, who became a double winner by owning and training the horses that won two chariot races. Leonides of Rhodes won all three of the major running events four times successively, for 12 individual wins, not exceeded until 2016 by Michael Phelps. Herodoros of Megara won the trumpeter's competition nine consecutive times. Two wrestlers won the boy's event followed later by five successive wins in the open competition. The emperor Nero of Rome won six times, showing venerability by acting and playing the lyre in public. The pentathlete Phayllos of Kroton outfitted and commanded a battleship at the 480 BC Battle of Salamis, helping Greece defeat Persia. One of the few recorded measurements of Ancient Greece, his long jump of 55 feet has been nearly duplicated by five successive standing long jumps, each employing a re-invented strategy for jumping with weights in each hand. The remarkable skills of those 12 may serve as inspirations for today's athletes.

A multidimensional analysis of the ancient Olympics is presented. Starting in 776 BC, the Olympic Games have emerged as the best known and documented of the four Panhellenic Games, compared to the Nemean, Isthmian and Pythian Games. A reliable list of 861 Olympic events and winners was analyzed. Among athletics events, were the stadion (a run of about 200m), the diaulos (about 400m), the diaulos in armor and the pentathlon (stadion, discus, javelin, long jump and wresting). There were combat events (boxing, wrestling and the no-holds-barred pankration), chariot racing, equestrian racing and artistic performances (herald competition, trumpeting, lyre playing and acting). Significant technology included the clever use of ropes and levers to start the running events and the chariot races. A cord was wrapped around the javelin with a finger loop to create spin stabilization. Beginning with a standing start, long jumpers employed complex kinematics to extend their distances while carrying weights. The three greatest superstars were Leonides of Rhodes who won all three of the main running events four times in a row (12 wins), Herodoros of Megara who won the trumpeter competition nine times in a row and Astylos of Croton who won 7 athletics events. Five athletes won six times, including Nero (whose wins might have been somewhat contrived). Those superstars would have much to teach us as to training methods and techniques, while our video analysis and knowledge of nutrition could have helped them. Although the Olympic Games were only open to men, Kykniska of Sparta, a married woman, was a double Olympic champion, having twice owned and trained winning chariot horses. Women competed at Olympia in their own separate Heraean Games. The running distances were shortened from multiples of 600 Greek feet (for men) to multiples of 500 Greek feet (for women). In today's world, the Olympic flame is lit at Hera's shrine, providing women with a magnificent symbol of equality.

Olympic speed skating champions at the 2018 Winter Olympics finally produced times as good as at Salt Lake in 2002, when ice conditions were exceptional. The causes of improvement in speed skating will be deduced and evaluated. Olympic speed skating began for men in 1924 and for women in 1960. An athlete produces power due to lean body mass and training. The efficiency of applying that power depends on coaching, technique and equipment (including the aerodynamics of the suit, skates and ice conditions). Technicians created outstanding ice conditions at Cortina in 1956, at Lake Placid in 1980 and at Salt Lake in 2002. Competition moved indoors at Calgary in 1988 where ice was not subject to the whims of weather, back outdoors in 1992 and back indoors (with better ice) for good in 1994. The clap skate was introduced in 1998. That skate allowed powerful extensor muscles to be used for the first time, as the skate remained in contact with the ice for a greater fraction of the power stroke. A linear regression analysis of Olympic winning times showed that the percent improvement per Olympiad (%I/O) was 0.8% due to general improvements in training and efficiency. An additional 3.3% was added for each of the five Games when ice improved, 4.2% was lost when competition moved back outdoors and an additional 2.1% was gained when the clap skate was introduced. A plot of the velocity ratio of the female/male Olympic champions shows an exponential increase from 87.5% in 1960, flattening out at 92% in 1980, as training and efficiency for women improved relative to men. The average %I/O has remained at 92% since 1980. Assuming equal training and efficiency, the 92% female/male velocity ratio should equal the female/male relative lean-to-weight ratio of elite speed skaters, which it does.

Four years ago, Russia hosted the Sochi Winter Olympics. Next week, when the 2018 Games begin in PyeongChang, South Korea, Russia will be absent. The country’s Olympic Committee was suspended by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in December, following accusations of the use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) among Russian athletes and further claims that Russia has engaged in the state-sponsored cover-up of doping offences. In fairness, Russian athletes who could prove they were clean could still compete; but only as individuals under a neutral flag.Arguably, athletics is the highest profile sport, since the greatest number of medals are available to tempt cheaters to take PEDs and gain financial reward. The year 1988 became a watershed moment for athletics. The 2016 Olympic champions in athletics were slightly worse than their 1988 counterparts. Further, two increases in anti-doping efforts have each been coincident “new normals” each 1/2 as much as the preceding %I/O. The Games have become much cleaner, which is only fair to the multitude of honest medal winners of the past and those who want to win honesty from now on. The efforts to encourage fair play in sports serve to put a positive goal before the athlete of the future, an effort that should be widely supported.